


Seiðr Edda

by PaxVobis



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Blood Magic, Dark Comedy, Dark Magic, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Drugged Sex, Drugs, Drunk Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fingerfucking, Gender or Sex Swap, Light BDSM, Love Bites, M/M, Masturbation, Menstrual Sex, Menstruation, Metal Puns, Mild Gore, Multi, Nude Photos, Oral Sex, Real Cool Blowjob, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Ritual Sex, Roller Derby, Rope Bondage, Witchcraft, girl!Toki, trans!Pickles (Dream)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:36:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 60,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6239602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxVobis/pseuds/PaxVobis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After playing a concert in a place of Icelandic legend and leaving it bloody and desecrated, the band is cursed to confront their disrespectful ways through the transformation of one of their members.</p><p>tl;dr: fuck you alls being ladys am brutal :C</p><p>R18+ only, explicit sex and drug use.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. MARERITT

**Loki spake:**  
24\. "They say that with spells | in Samsey once  
Like witches with charms didst thou work;  
And in witch's guise | among men didst thou go;  
Unmanly thy soul must seem." - _Lokasenna, 13th Century_

 

**ICELAND**

* * *

 

The frozen wastes of Iceland – as the sun set over the perilous snow fields, the black rock birthed from the boiling earth sharp against the violent glaciers, this twilight of the gods bathed the ice with a red glow, that of a dying light.  But that night, the sun’s immortal ichor wouldn't be the only blood to spill across the snow.

For on that night and that night only, Dethklok played Iceland.

Perhaps there’s not much to say for it: lights in the sky, blood on the earth.  The homicide toll was higher than all the rest of the year combined in the usually-peaceful country, but most of that could be put down to one accident involving feedback from the new mics and everyone present agreed the bit where the sound guy’s head popped was ‘f-kking stórbrotið’ so, like, no hard feelings.

It ended with a dropped mic and a snarled “Thank fuck that’s over,” as the vapour of a thousand drawn breaths rose into the cold night.  The band were quickly airlifted away from the stage to a secluded mountain resort for the afterparty, a glitzy affair having somewhat missed the brutal target and landed instead with lit up ice sculptures and a recreational thermal spa.  That was what happened when you outsourced the catering, but at least the icy forms that dripped over the canapés took the shape of Nordic beasts: the arching mane of a frothing Fenrir, the thundering hooves of musclebound Slephnir, and the twisted bodies of Góinn and Móinn standing frozen, mid-writhe, over their hoards of, like, jelly shots.  Those were cute and, frankly, worth hoarding.  You ever had top shelf Icelandic vodka?  No?  You haven’t  _lived._

Someone else hoarding jelly shots: Toki Wartooth, with a collection gathered in his shirt held out before him with one hand.  Getting his tongue to the bottom of the shot glass was proving challenging but not impossible as another strawberry flavoured delicacy slithered down his throat.  “It’s not vodkas, it’s brennevin,” he informed a toasted Pickles and the young two women hanging off the drummer’s arms.

“It tastes like vodka.”  Pickles should have known.  Toki should have known better, actually, but he’d been drinking since he woke up (just past noon) so wasn't exactly the most grounded.  Pickles, with a liver so entirely formed of rubbery gristle it had nothing in it to fail, was in a similar situation, but held it together better than Toki – considerably so, judging by the dark circles under Toki’s eyes.  There had been some sleepless nights lately.

“No it tastes completely differents, it’s brennevin and it’s totally brutal, it’s they - they calls it Black Death.  Icelandics Black Death.”  He sucked another out of its glass like a lime flavoured oyster, unaware of the girls’ eyes following the winding track of his tongue as he fished it out.

“That’s – pretty brutal, Toki.”  Pickles eyed the next shot quivering on Toki’s outstretched tongue, picturing it trembling on the heaving breasts of girl on his right.  The less time he could spend with his bandmates right now, the better - his head throbbed with a migraine.  But groupies were like that, they were always looking for a promotion in band hierarchy.  It was vital Pickles drew them away from Toki, especially Toki unaccompanied.  God, he didn't need this tonight.  “Hey, do you think we could have some of those?”

“N-No!”  With a lurch away, Toki protectively pulled his shirtful of glasses close.  The girls attached to Pickles didn't know where to look: Toki's exposed abs or his tongue circling the glass.  Pickles betrayed an angry twitch.

“Yeah well whatever, keep ‘em,” he sneered.  “We were just on our way to the hot, the  _thermal spa_ , you know, this place has, weren’t we, ladies?”

All eyes were on Pickles again.  Toki’s too – they lit right up even as the drummer slid his arms around the women’s bared waists, ushering them away.  Miniskirts and croptops weren't really snow outfits, but one of them had fur lining, so at least they were making an effort.

“Oh!  Goods ideas Pickle I’m coming too!”  A little slow on the uptake.  Pickles and the girls were a few steps gone as Toki staggered in behind them, gawky face hovering near Pickles' shoulder.  Christ, christ!

“Err, Toki…”  Pickles interjected too late: Toki was firmly part of the bath party and the girls giggling coyly at him.  “Toki this was kind of a – a private party thing…”

“Aw, let him come!” laughed the girl on the left.  The other agreed, nodding her head impassioned, her bosom set bouncing.

“See, they wants me to come too, I comings.”

Pickles sawed his teeth together anxiously, passing images of regrettable and awkward four-person orgies of the glam scene flickering through his head like pork chops bouncing off a grill.  “Fine, whatever, just please stop using that word… Toki…?”

“Would you like death shot girls… Pickle?”  It was those innocent blue eyes.  Masks to the fiendish black heart deep within.  It was easy to get carried away, think that Toki was all fluff, but Pickles had lived alongside him too long not to witness a pale, slippery underbelly to the guy’s character.  The guy was fucked, this was fucked, getting hard over stealing another guy’s girls.  Pickles did not screw through the ambiguous 80s for a devil’s threesome with this moron.

“Toki,” he leaned in close, “Dude.  Don’t – don’t steal my sluts.”

“Pickle!”  Toki’s brow furrowed in liquored irritation as the girls helped themselves to his jelly shot stash.  “I’m not gonna to steals your sluts!”

“Oh yeah?  Then why are you following us?” Pickles snapped.  They’d reached one of the springs now, a secluded geothermal and concrete phenomena poorly decorated with candles – set aside for this very purpose.  The hubbub of the party behind, all that could be heard was the girls cooing over the sight, the gentle steaming of the spa, and the occasional slurp as a jelly shot disappeared past expensive lipstick.

“I just wants to see the spring!  I don’t wants your sluts, I can do better.”

“Pfft, yeah, what’re ya gonna do, Toki?  Fuck Björk?”  Pickles’ licentious grin dissolved as the girls left his clutches, but it was only to strip.  The right one balanced an upturned jelly shot on her bare breast.  Fucking Toki, leave already.

“Yeah I’m gonna fucks Björk!”

As the two musicians bickered the girls slid into the spring, their lithe bodies steaming in the clear water.  Settling as the men aggressively started to strip, they sat back to watch the show, blissfully floating together in the pool.  That’s sisterhood, shared lust.  They couldn't believe how lucky they were.

“So, did you get to see the show?”  The one that had been on Pickle’s right asked as she fished one of the jelly shots from Toki’s shirt, abandoned by the poolside in his haste.

“No, did you?” the other girl asked.

“Hell no!  How the hell am I meant to get here if I was at the show?!”  They both laughed, then, “Say ah!” as the one on the right fed the one on the left the jelly shot, giving a cheeky giggle as she wiped the girl’s mouth once she finished swallowing. They watched on with hungry eyes as Toki viciously ditched his balled up underwear at Pickles and came tearing into the water to yells of, “Fuck you!  Fuck you, Toki!  I don’t wanna see your dick again!”, his knees scalded as he splashed crudely into the spa.

“Ooh, tickles!”  Toki sank shoulder deep in the pool, wading over to the girls as Pickles stripped the last of his clothes and plunged in behind, ready to grab the little thief and drown him.  But Toki only slumped beside the girls – a respectful distance away as Pickles, his rage collapsing, anxiously took his place between them again.  “I told you I don’t wants to.  I’s too tired anyways.”

“Yeah…”  Pickles eyed him warily lest a hand creep towards them.  “Yooou… doing okay with that?  Been taking that stuff Charlie gave you…?”

“Yeah buts, ehhh, I donno.  Thems pill just make me sleepy, they don’ts makes it stop.”

“Toki’s been having nightmares, ladies,” Pickles conceded, full of superficial empathy, the girls melting on either side of him.

“Poor Toki,"  But the girl was instantly pulled closer by Pickles’ arm winding around her waist.

“Yeah, poors Toki.”  Toki closed his eyes as he listened to the spa murmur around them, the heat pinking his pale body.  The voices of Pickles and the girls became a blur against his drunkenness as the warmth curled up around his aching muscles, blooming through his tendons.  Screw nightmares, he could sleep here without a care.  So long as Pickles fished him out before he drowned, anyway.

“Did you really hold the concert at Stapafell?”  A single manicured finger trailed through the sparse tendrils of Pickles’ chest hair as the girls snuggled closer, though his hawklike gaze remained stuck on Toki.

“Err, yeah, sure, why not.”

“That’s so  _crazy_.”

“What, were we, like, desecrating somethin again?”  Mutual approval from the girls. 

“Desecration is so hot,” purred the one on his left, but they both looked up as a soft snore dropped from Toki.  As he slipped into the embrace of sleep, the last thing he heard was Pickles leading the girls out of the bath: “Come on ladies… he needs his beauty sleep.  We ain’t done desecratin no holy places yet.  Hey, do you guys like candles...?”

 

* * *

 

 

This sleep was heavy and gentle, running her fingertips across Toki’s softly shut eyelids and over his cheeks, dragging him into the abyss.  He woke in the world of dreams, his fragile consciousness – usually bright – shuddering under the pressure of this dream’s depth as he drew his first breath; as a breath in a dream is always exaggerated, the idea of a breath in a place where it's unneeded.

The landscape was shadowed with a churning, purple sky overhead, but he slowly came to recognise the scalded black stone he was stepping across as the mountain they played on earlier – in fact, the massacre of the pit still stained the dirt with glistening pools of fresh blood.  “Ew,” he said to himself, stepping around a pool with sticky blood tracked in his bootprints.  “They could be more nicer about wheres they gets it, for fucksings… hell.”

Here he was dreaming and still he felt so tired - couldn’t a guy get some sleep while he was sleeping?!  His eyes were drawn up the rust-coloured path over the bloody and lichened speckled rocks to the cairn at the top of the mountain – a pile of huge stones stacked at the crest, a distant tower from where Toki stood but, considering the distance, they must have been massive.  Toki had been too tired at the gig to pick up on anything, but in his dream his skin prickled with a crawling fear as he climbed into the clouds, low now around the mountain.  In Norway, a cairn marked a path – the idea that anyone was strong enough to mark their path with those!  Any human, anyway… ah, shit.

“Please comes out if yous here, gets it over with!”  Toki’s plaintive cry echoed up the mountain, but nothing stirred in response.  In these dreams he’d been having, he was always alone in death.  Usually by monster of some sort.  Usually one that looked kinda dead.  It was pretty cool and usually like, real Dimmu Borgir, but having to peel your own flesh off is for sometimes, not every night.

Plunging through the thick fog and holding himself in a hug to ward off the cold and the heebie jeebies, Toki saw a cave mouth open up in the path before him.  “Fucks, why!” he cursed.  He could think of nothing pleasant that dwelt within caves.  Still he felt his heavy feet drawn across the stone to its gaping maw. 

“Okay, I’s go in now,” he announced, his eyes scraping the landscape as he clambered down over the rocks, “Gos in… to cave.  Would be so bad if something was to eats me now.  Yeah.  Very uncool.”  But still no answer from the retching sky, its curls of dark violet, grey, of wonders. 

“Fuck,” he added as reassurance, like fuck was a prayer, his voice quavering in the face of it.  “Fucks this.”  He dropped down from the jagged rocks to a narrow tunnel, leading into darkness.  Black sand crunched beneath his boots.  The air was cool, clear, and crouching to catch his breath, he heard – first, barely sure if he heard at all, then slowly as his mind caught it – a woman’s voice, sobbing. 

“Fuck,” he repeated, but he was losing his resolve.  That sobbing sounded so young and harmless, it secreted through to his spine and chilled him to the marrow.  Toki placed his hands over his ears, gritted his teeth, and tried to drag his feet away, but they were shackled by the dream.  There was nowhere to go but deeper.

The gloom of the cave was exaggerated by the fog, just a thick, weighted darkness, and the girl’s sobbing seemed to be coming from here, then there, then behind – from everywhere at once.  It reverberated against the cavern walls, taking on a sing-song quality.  Toki gulped; in a world where he need not swallow, a strangled thing.  There was a light up ahead, a beam through the roof lighting up the cavern like a chapel, and he drifted towards it, mothlike.  Another cairn, hidden here in the singing cave, was lit up silver in the shard of light.  And beside it, a form – a dark-haired girl, kneeling to the black sand floor, dressed in a white nightgown and sobbing softly into the hem of her skirt.

Toki looked around him as the girl’s weeping echoed through the cave.  She didn't  _look_  like a monster, just a teenager; in fact, she looked so skinny she must have been starving.  Something wrenched in his heart as the shackles tightened around his ankles, something about lost innocence; he pushed it back under like a lump in his throat, a hint of revulsion flipping in his stomach.  No way, no way was he going in there, into the depths of his heart.  Out here was just fine, monsters and all.

“Um, hey, lady?” he blurted numbly, but an icy cold choked him as she turned to look at him, knelt mere feet away, her eyes big and blank. 

“Uh… sorrys.”  It did't feel like enough.

 _Hvers vegna hefur þú komið hingað hingað?_  she said in what he instantly recognised as Icelandic – so close to his mother tongue and still so unintelligible.  It souped in his mind as he found though he took her meaning instantly, her voice chiming into thousands off the cavern’s stones, her strange words were still just a twist past what he could comprehend.  What are you doing here?

“Um, I’m hears you cry… I come to see what’s wrong?” he tried.

 _Ekkert er rangt rangt._   Jesus, she sounded so sad.  Toki glanced around dumbly as her voice sing-songed around him, tumbling off the rocks in beautiful melodies.

“Uh, cool,” he said, ever the coward, as he met her eye.  “If nothing ams wrongs, I just go then.”  He tried to pull back but her eyes held him in place.  At their pupils they looked like fish eyes, hollow and grey, but outside – she had a very pretty face, tear-streaked.  When he gazed at her he felt his chest clench like he was being squeezed to death.

 _Ekkert er rangt rangt. Fyrirgefðu fyrirgefðu._  Slowly she rose, her nightgown falling around her weak knees, and stepped forward so she was standing before him, her bare feet sunk in the black sand.  Barely inches from him, she only came up to his chest.  Toki trembled; with her heavenly voice and frail form, he wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he’d be no sucker to a dream.

“No that’s cool.  You don’ts have to be sorrys,” he mumbled, looking at his boots.  The girl rolled her eyes, glancing around as Toki shook, resisting his paternal urges and the hand of fate.

 _Þú ert einn af þeim tónlistarmönnum tónlistarmönnum?_  she asked, and glanced up at him again.  Toki crumbled under her doe-like gaze.

“Yeah I’s name’s Tokis I’m musicians.  Yes, I’ms – musicians.  Yeah?” he choked out, then choked for real as she lunged forward – not to grab but to embrace, wrapping her arms around him, her cheek pressed against his chest.  Her body felt like paper, like ash, barely present, and he had a deep fear of crushing her to nothing as he put his hands on her shoulders, gently trying to push her away.

 _Þú valdið svo miklum sorg sorg...,_ she murmured, her fingers closing on his shirt.

“Oh, fucks,” Toki moaned as a tear squeezed from his eye.  How were they coming?  Why was he crying?  He didn't feel sad.  He pushed harder on her shoulders, but she wouldn't budge.  “Lets go please I’ms… have to die somewhere heres and, no sense wasting times hey.  Ha ha.”

It wasn't that funny.

  _Viltu fokk mér mér?_   This time her voice echoed within his shutting chest like a heart attack, his fists curling tight into the fabric of her nightgown.  Fuck me?  Did she say fuck me?  She said fuck me, didn't she?

“What?” he whispered, helpless.  This dream was either rapidly changing or about to get very, very bad, like biting his face off bad.  Thank fuck if that, it could be over!  But Toki’s stomach tucked inside itself at the merest idea of fucking the sick girl like she asked, and now she’d asked he couldn't unthink it.  He had felt so sexless in this dream and now, suddenly, sex hit him in a nausea; he was prying away her fragile form, struggling with the massive strength he found alien in her slender body, and she wasn't even warm.

Once he got her arms away from his chest it started to get difficult.  There was twisting, writhing, her arms like serpents coiling around his; he couldn't seem to pull her off him.  Like a fight in slow-motion, perpetually trying to avoid hurting her, Toki weaved and dragged and wrenched her groping hands away, but they always found home with long black nails curled in his shirt.

 _Viltu fokk mér; þú ert maður, viltu fokk mér mér?_   The girl dragged at him, tears flowing down his cheeks.   _Þú ert maður, er það ekki ekki?_

“Yeah I’s a man buts no, I don’ts want to, uh!”  All it took is one misplaced bootstep on the fine black sand.  “I’s not that kinds of ‑ ‑ ‑ fuck!”

And Toki went down, flat on his back and sprawling in the sand with the girl scrambling on top of him, straddling his chest.  When he tried to rise she shoved him down with both palms, flooring him instantly.

 _Þú talar ekki eins og maður maður. Þú lætur ekki eins og maður maður. Getur þú fokk eins og maður maður?_   Her voice has taken on a violent tone as her nails pierced his shirt, scratched the skin of his chest.  Those fish eyes fixing on him and staring right through him, his heart stopping cold like a dead muscle within him.

“No!”  With his hands on her pale arms, feeling so thin he could snap them, he pushed back.  “No!  I, I’m not!  Get the fucks off!”  She slammed him to the sand again effortlessly, hissing through her teeth at him.  Toki felt the dark coming in heavy, suffocating as she drew closer to his face, her weight crushing in on his weak heart, collapsing every vein.

 _Nei!_  she screamed in his face, and it thundered around his ears, through his body, like the final screams of a thousand violated girls,  _Nei!_   _Þú ert ekki maður maður,_   _þú ert göndull-laus huglaus huglaus!_  Her hands, thin, small, cold, wrapped around his throat.  _Þú munt borga fyrir vanhelgunnar þitt bitt! Þú munt alla borga borga! Aldrei aftur hér hér hér hér hér hér hér hér hér hér hér hér…_

Her voice was sawing over his eardrums, her fingers crushing his windpipe under an impossible strength, an impossible weight, and then it was all lifting away as the dream collapsed around him, just folded down.  Her voice vanished into a mosquito’s whine as it flew away from his ear, and Toki awoke in his own bed, a thin glaze of sweat over his heaving body.  It was over.  He was home.  Just one more fucking nightmare. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled, turning over to clutch his pillow and nestling it between his breasts.  He was about to drop off again, exhausted, by the time he realised where the dull ache in his chest was coming from. 

“Wh… oh, fuck.”  Toki turned onto his back, chucking his sheets off and looking down his body at the smooth mounds of breasts, abdominals, hips, cunt, then ran his hands through his hair.  Pursing his lips he squeezed one breast and found it convincing.  In another dream maybe he’d exploit the gift, find out what makes girls so soft, but he was so tired from dreaming he only wanted this one to end.

He took a nipple between thumb and forefinger and pinched, hard.

“Ahh- - -!   _Fu-uck!”_

The dream was not over yet.

 


	2. GALÐR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no funny business

**OFDENSEN’S OFFICE**

* * *

 

“Okay.  Sorry Grace.  Who’d you say was on hold?”  Charles Foster Ofdensen cradled the receiver on his shoulder as he reached to the laptop to refresh his mail, a firm frown creeping across his face.  “Yeah.  Uh huh.  You know it’s vital that you put any member of Dethklok through to me as soon as they call, Grace.  No exceptions.  No – Grace?  No except - - - okay.”

It had been a long night, full of whinging – the guys had not been pleased about the sudden but necessary exit they’d had to make. Ofdensen had given them the option of staying at the party but none of them had taken it.  In a kinder world he wouldn’t have even had to ask them, would have just got the affected party out and let them back at each other later.  But, no – even mentioning that one of their number was suddenly unwell meant the rest of the night sitting in a helicopter with at least four grown men nattering about why they were being ‘forced’ to accompany their stricken.

“Screaming.  I see.  It’s probably just the nightmares.  Yes, I agree.  Well… just put him through, Grace.  Yes, I’m prepared.”

Of course it was mostly because they were nosy as hell, but Ofdensen had been determined to keep the unconscious Toki separate while he recovered.  At the touring stage nightmares didn’t seem so bad, but without proper rest fatigue would take its toll and create a long term problem.  And his job was to prevent problems.  Once Toki had been fished out of the spa – thankfully before he drowned or vomited too much – it was only a blissfully short amount of time he had to convince the others it was a real emergency.  Toki’s grey-faced, comatose body did that fine.  Then it was wham, bam, on the trolley, into the Dethcopter, and back home to the petulant whining of four men torn away from their evening by concern they’d never admit.

Ofdensen braced himself as the call was transferred with a click of his pen.

 _\---AIIGHARGHOFDENSHJELPIS,_ breath, _SOMETHINGSVERYBAD,_ breath, _FUCKINGBADSPLEASEGETHELPAUGHPLEASE_.  Pause.  Heavy breathing. Ofdensen returned the phone to his ear.

“Hey there, Toki.  How are you doing this morning?” he asked pleasantly, then held the phone away again as another barrage of panicked consonants poured out at his ear.  When it finally stopped, he tried again.  “Now Toki, I know you might be kind of confused, maybe a bit scared.  But I need you to speak slowly, okay?  In a quiet voice.  Do you understand?”

 _Okay,_ panicked breathing, _I’ms, understand._

Good old Toki.  You could always rely on him to turn around with just a little push.

“Okay.  Now I realise you’re feeling overwhelmed but there's nothing to worry about.  It’s all sorted out.  You passed out last night but that’s okay.  We pulled you out, gave you a little IV, and now we’re safe back home.  No complications.  Seems like maybe you had a bit too much to drink last night, and Pickles tells me the only meal you had was, uh, jelly shots, and I’m sorry to, uh, burst your bubble but that’s not really food, Toki.”

_I knows.  I’m sorry.  I won’ts do it again._

“That’s okay.” Ofdensen smiled warmly, making a note on the pad by his hand: ‘04/05. Toki Fine.’  “Did you sleep okay?”

There was a long pause from the other side of the line, then a squeaky:  _… nos._

“More nightmares?”

_Uh huh._

“I’m sorry to hear that.  But you’re feeling yourself again?”  Another pause, and Ofdensen couldn’t hold back the returning frown.  “Toki?”

_Uhh… no, that’s… kinds of the problems.  Not sure I ams myselfs.  I thinks I’s still ams dream… maybe?_

A steely cold settled over Ofdensen’s face as he leaned forward in his chair, concentrating on the conversation.

“Well, have you tried pinching yourself?”

_Yeah I tries everything._

“Hmm.  And you’re still not sure?”

_Yeah I don’ts think I ams Toki, maybe._

“Okay.  Well, I can tell you, you sound like Toki to me, and I don't sleep on the job, ha ha."  Silence.  Ofdensen decided on a different tact.  "Look, can you do something for me, Toki?  I want you to get up and find a mirror.  And then when you look in it, tell me what you see.”

He clicked his pen fretfully as he waited for Toki to carry out the simple instructions.  He’d caught Toki dissociating before but any more severe symptoms would need to be looked at immediately, and he was well aware the Norwegian would rather be flayed alive than examine anything about his past with a therapist.

_Okay here’s mirrors._

“All right Toki.  What do you see?”

 _I sees Toki.  But—_ Toki’s words were lost, deliberately muffled. Ofdensen shifted.

“I’m sorry, Toki.  Can you say that again?  I couldn’t hear you.”

_I sees Toki, but ams… lady._

“… Lady?  There’s a lady with you?” Ofdensen moved a hand, poised to order an emergency crew to remove the intruder.  Harsh but necessary.

_No – I – don’ts know, it there still!  Ofdensen ‑ ‑ ‑_

“Okay.  Toki.  Take a deep breath.  One more time.  Tell me what’s wrong.”

_I ams lady!_

Ofdensen looked down at his notepad intently.  This was… an interesting development, sure.  He’d suspected things were going down with the boys before but not this, and not with Toki.  Still, would explain a bit.  That was a perk of this job: no one challenge like the last.  Kept you stimulated.  On your toes.

“Toki, I think perhaps you should come to my office for a chat,” he said, and carefully crossed out the word ‘Fine’ on his note.

 

**APPROX 20 MINUTES LATER**

* * *

 

“Sees!”  Toki had handfuls of his own breasts through his shirt and Ofdensen was just staring, nonplussed, through him.  This was.  Certainly a thing.  That was happening.

“You don’ts sees!” The CFO raised from his seat almost at the same time as Toki, holding up a calming hand as the guitarist was raising his shirt.

“---ahhh I don’t need to Toki.  That’s okay.  I believe you.”  Only once Toki had slumped back into the guest chair did he feel safe to sit again.  “And you – you match?  If you take my meaning?”

“Match?”  The Norwegian looked so helpless just sat there like that.  It couldn’t be an easy thing to handle for anyone, Ofdensen had decided, regarding Toki hunched in his suddenly ill-fitting clothing, but he found himself weirdly thankful it was Toki and not one of the others.  Maybe Nathan could have handled this, but only maybe – and he would have been uncontrollable as soon as he got used to it.  Toki, on the other hand, well… his wrist was easily twisted.

“I – I mean…”  What did he mean?  What did Toki even comprehend about this stuff?  Medical English wasn’t his strong point.  “I mean do you… are you a lady… below… as well?”

Ofdensen’s eyes tracked down with Toki’s, terrified more for how the answer would be phrased than anything else.  But Toki only gave a simple, definitive, guilty, “Yes,” averting his eyes, then, “Why asks, you knows what’s answer.”

“I – I just wanted to know for sure.  I mean, you still have your moustache… same basic shape.” Ofdensen wondered if the internals were hooked up too, though not aloud.  That could… be an issue.  It was all... an issue.

“Toki…?”

“Yes.”

“How did this happen?”  He tried to look calming and open.  Really tried.  Even though he knew there’d be no explanation.  It wasn’t like Toki snuck into a plastic surgeon’s while pissed – Ofdensen had kept a watchful eye on him all night.  So that left, well, the other stuff – magic.  Gods and tricky things he didn’t like to fuck with.

“Don’t know.  I has... dream.”

“You’ve been having nightmares all month, though.”

“I knows.”  Toki crossed his arms stubbornly, met with some awkwardness as he searched for where to place them, settling with under his breasts eventually. Ofdensen noted with thankfulness that they weren’t that large.  Probably something to do with muscle to fat ratio.

“I dreams, there’s girl… and she calls me gay.”  You could have scraped the blankness off of Ofdensen’s face like a pale margarine.  This?  _This_ was the nightmare?  “In a cave.  Uhhh and, she ams very angrys.  She strangles me!  Then I wakes up and this fuck up bullshit happen.  Anyways, I would like it to stops now.”

“I – I know, Toki.” Ofdensen pushed his glasses up his nose, flashing a sympathetic frown at his charge.  “Well, it definitely sounds like magic.  I guess it wouldn’t be an isolated case, I just can’t think of many comparable instances – especially with normal people.  I mean, gods, sure – you know about Loki, uhh… Toki?”

“Pffts, ofs course.”  Toki rolled his eyes.  “Turn into lady horse, get humps by horse, have horse babies.  That whats you get at right?”  He leaned forward in his chair as Ofdensen internally braced himself.  “Well!!  Guess what!  _I’S NOT A HORSE._ ”

“Yes.  I know.”

“Well… goods.  I'ms not hasing horse children.  There is no hays for them.”

“Toki, what am I going to tell the others?”  Another carefully timed sympathetic frown.  Some people thought Ofdensen heartless, an imitation of an emotional being, but he held steadfast.  He was just very, very efficient.  There was a subtle difference.

“I don’ts know!  You’s the guy who fix things, so fix it!” Ofdensen gave a sigh, but it was only for show.  He’d already worked out this part of the conversation.  It paid to know your clients, and he knew Toki well.

“I’ll do my best.  it’s likely a spell of some kind which means it’s probably reversible if we can just work out why it’s happened.  In the meantime, you’ll have to lie low – to be on the safe side you probably shouldn’t leave your room.”

“Auuuch!”  Toki was clearly not impressed.

“Can you imagine how the others would react if they saw you like this?”

“Then you just cuts them tits off then!  I don’ts wants them.” Ofdensen stared straight through the dismissive Toki, his finger hovering on the intercom again.

“It’s probably just a temporary thing, Toki.  We don’t need to consider major surgery just yet.  Just stay in your room.  I’ll make sure you have everything you need.”

“But whats if I has to go to the bathrooms?” Ofdensen, a step ahead, had been dreading this moment: sure enough, Toki’s face collapsed in fear.  “Do I have to… uhh… where is even…” and in a horrified whisper, “… littles girl room?”

“The bathrooms here are private, Toki; they’re unisex.”

“Yeah but they mades for dudes!”

“They – they’re the same, Toki.  Look, I’m sure you can work it out on your own.  Worst case scenario you’re stuck as a woman for a few days, then we ‑ ‑ ‑”

He was cut off by Toki slamming his fist on the plush leather armrest with a dull thud.  “Well whys do I have to hide!  I hates this!  Fuck yous, if I has to be womans then I just _be_ womans!”

Ofdensen felt the words plucked off his tongue as Toki interrupted him, arms crossed, a sour glare boiling on his face.

“Excuse me?” he said.

“I says lets me be womans!  If I has to be for days then I wants to be for reals!   Okay _dickwad?”_

Ofdensen swallowed dryly, defaulting back to emergency mode.  “Okay,” he croaked.  “No need to get angry.  I - what’ll I tell the others?  You know they’re not very, uh, understanding, of, uh, issues… issues of sexual expression.”

“I don’ts knows… You makes up something!  Tells them... I’s my sister!”

“I don’t think that’s very believable, Toki.”

“Oh yeah and that I’ms just suddenlys lady now is??  Tells them!  Says I go away and then when it’s fixed you say she dies!  And they never has to know about it ever!”

“O-… okay.  Okay.  I’ll –  I’ll do that.  Do you – look, I’ll tell you what,” Ofdensen leaned back in his chair, mentally scrapping plan A upon plan B upon plan X.  “I’ll make up an alibi for you, we’ll get some specialists to help you look more convincing.  Then, I guess, you can hang out but you can’t give yourself away, Toki.  They’ll slaughter you.  Metaphorically.  You’ll never live it down.  So be careful what you say, okay?  Or better yet, just don’t say anything.”

“Okay.  Good.”  Toki crossed his arms again, staring away angrily.  There was no sweetness in this victory, but then Ofdensen was never particularly fun to win against.  It usually meant you’d made a big mistake.

“And Toki – if you need anything, please call me first, okay?  Anything at all.  I know some things – like the bathroom – are going to be hard to ask about but you have to trust me, okay?  If we work together, we can handle this.”

“… okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay.” Ofdensen finally pressed the button on the intercom.  “Grace?  Send the costume team, stat.  It’s time to work a miracle.”

 

**MORDHAUS COSTUME DEPARTMENT**

* * *

 

The main thing Ofdensen noted was how different Toki looked without his moustache.  It was something like a trip through time, looking at the man through younger eyes, as there was a time before the fu manchu.  But while the guitarist instantly looked half a decade younger, at the same time the other signs of aging became more prominent: his gaunt cheekbones and jaw, the shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep.  And he kept pursing and stretching his top lip – very irritating to watch. Ofdensen assumed it was from the sudden lack of hair but, well, it was just annoying.

“Please hold still, my lord.”

Ofdensen didn’t even look up from his magazine as Toki yelped, a clump of eyebrow forcibly removed by wax strip.  Everyone suffered for beauty.  There had been a speech earlier, very angry and clumsy and involving lots of aggressive gestures, hung on the central concept of _If I’s Lady Now I Must Bes Most Beautifuls, Sexy, Hot, Cutes, Most Brutal Ladys Ever._   Octavia Sperati and Vibeke Stene had been mentioned in vague terms, but so had Kathrine Sørland - to blank hoods and Ofdensen flicking his gaze up for the merest second.  Never really knew what you were going to get from Toki.  Sure, he'd tried to warn him about beautiful, sexy, hot and cute in the company of his bandmates, so used to getting what they wanted, but Toki wouldn’t hear a word of it.  Be it upon his own head.

“What’s these?”  Toki span idly in the makeup chair as a collection of Klokateers fussed over him, holding up a titanium instrument that looked designed to slice thumbs apart or ‑ ‑ ‑

“Eyelash curlers, my lord.”

Or that.  Toki played with them in his quick fingers, then leaned towards the stage mirror to try them out. Ofdensen watched him out of the corner of his eye as the curlers got alarmingly close to poking out those big blues, but thankfully Toki was stopped before he had to intervene.

“Okay, my lord, if you’ll step this way we’ll move on to the second stage.”  Toki was ushered to his feet and out of the room by the hooded entourage, their head stopping briefly to counsel Ofdensen: “We’ll bring him back in a moment.”

“No problem.  Have fun Toki.” Ofdensen straightened the magazine and waited.

Three articles (two think pieces on Iranian politics, one fluff about long horned sheep) and many yelps and bangs and muffled cries later and the Norwegian was escorted out again. Ofdensen looked up briefly – the Klokateers were guiding him towards a large covered mirror, and one made the appropriate “Dun--dun-nah-nah!” sound effect as they finally pulled away the cloth, revealing Toki’s new look.  There she was: the most beautiful, sexy, hot, cutest, most brutal lady ever ever.

“I’s look like I’s ams lesbians,” Toki observed, crestfallen. Ofdensen peered again, eventually folding his magazine and standing to join them.

“It does err on the side of butch, I guess.”  The Klokateers had taken Toki’s hint and gone the road of classic metal chick: hip hugging black jeans, studded belt, black leather bracelets and boots, and a tight black t-shirt.  With the heavy black eyeliner and hair nicely tousled and put back in a ponytail with long bangs framing his powdered face, the overall impression was of one of the band’s groupies, particularly – Ofdensen noted, not without concern – the ones Nathan tended to favour, with more money than sense and always smelling like Coco Chanel and Malibu liqueur.

Unfortunately for Toki, his body didn’t quite give way to the illusion.  The shoulders were still slightly too broad, waist too skinny, muscles too tight.  Then with his defensive posture and overall awkwardness; honestly, he was right.  He did look like a lesbian.  Though to be fair, with recent developments, assuming nothing else had changed and he was still mostly chasing women, then… well, he was, wasn’t he?

“Sorry, sir.  We didn’t have much in the way of women’s clothing,” admitted a Klokateer sheepishly, but Ofdensen waved her off.

“You did your best.”  They truly had tried.  Still anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Toki could see right through the disguise.  You’d have to be an idiot.  He watched as Toki fiddled uncomfortably under his shirt with what must have been a bra.   “You look fine, Toki.”

“Yeah I knows, I’ms just uncomftortables.”

Ofdensen instantly dismissed the impulse to correct the broken English, placing a guiding hand on Toki’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry.  You won’t even have time to get used to it,” he said soothingly, only to snap at the Klokateers, “None of this leaves this room.  Understand?”

Miscellaneous affirmations followed from the Klokateers but Ofdensen was sound in the knowledge that they knew his modus operandi well enough.  Should this get out, the next thing to leave Mordhaus would be their coffins.

 

**BOARDROOM**

* * *

 

“… and tangentially related, his sister will be occupying his room for an undisclosed period of time.  Could be days, could be weeks, I don’t know.  I stress that while there is a reason for Toki’s absence and his sister’s coincidental residence here, in the interests of privacy I ask you not to enquire further.  It’s in your interests not to.  Is that all clear?”

Behind the shield of his stoicism, Ofdensen’s heart was slowly plummeting as the gathered band stared at him in judgemental silence.  They were more intuitive than Toki gave them credit for.  Saw right through it.  Christ, how dumb would you have to be to not?  Even Ofdensen had more faith in them than that.

Instead of crumbling, though, he stared right back.  Perhaps it was Pickles was the biggest threat, with his deliberately restrained intelligence, a cutting edge on that guy.  Or Skwisgaar, with a ram-like stubbornness to the death which would only be provoked by missing Toki, something he’d never admit but would feel soon enough.  Or Murderface, a physical threat, unpredictable, this afternoon featuring actual knives stuck into the table for some reason Ofdensen decided not to examine carefully.

But the only one he really had to worry about was Nathan.  A decision by Nathan was a decision by the whole band.  That was the only reason it worked when Ofdensen held the hulking vocalist’s steely gaze – because Nathan and he had an understanding of sorts.  It took just a blink, and Nathan’s chiselled frown instantly softened.

“Oh.  Okay,” Nathan grunted, diverting his eyes.  “Is she hot?”

“Uh,” Ofdensen decided not to question it, “She’s not really my type, Nathan.  And she looks a lot like Toki.  I wouldn’t go there if I were you.  Toki’s pretty sensitive about his personal life; I suggest you don’t mess with it.”

Skwisgaar was the second to break, narrowing his eyes to a vicious glare.  “Why isn’t Toki ever tellings us he has an sisters?  We gos all the ways to visits him’s family ands he nevers introduce us?”

“Well, I understand she’s kind of the black sheep of the family – estranged, you know.  Been living in Oslo for a long time.  And besides that he probably thinks you just wouldn’t understand… you know… women.”

Skwisgaar rolled his eyes.  “Pfft, fucks that.  I’ms very understandings of womens, I understands everythings abouts them.  How they ams ticking…”

“Yeah, we underschtand women.”  Murderface was still locked on carving a shape into the table with one of the knives surrounding him, listening intently to the conversation.

“Yeah, why didn’t he introduce us?  We’re nice dudes!”  Pickles continued.  “What’s she called again?”

“I don’t believe I told you.  Her name’s Frøya.”  Silence. Ofdensen pushed on.  “Like the Norse goddess.”

“Freya…”  Finally Murderface decided to join them, looking up at the CFO.  “How’d you schpell that?”

“F-R-O-with-a-stroke-Y-A.”

“Froya?” tried Murderface.  Glancing down the table, Ofdensen noticed he was now trying to chisel the word into the wood.  He’d gotten as far as F.

“Nos, it ams Ø̈,” corrected Skwisgaar, leaning over the table, “Ø̈.”

“Eh?”

“Ø̈ø̈ø̈ø̈ø̈ø̈.”

Nathan, meanwhile, had been putting this word together in his head and had reached an epiphany.  “Froyo,” he blurted with a grin, and the others honked with laughter.  “Hey – hey.  Toki’s sister’s named Froyo.  Froyo Wartooth.”

“Frøya.  It's pronounced different to how it looks.”  They laughed over him, something was said about yoghurt, yoghurt in Norway, of course it’s ams frozen, something about Froyo Ono – that one from Pickles, pushing the CFO's earlier point. Ofdensen just frowned.  “Okay guys, just – be civil.  She doesn’t speak much English and she’s far from home.  She’s in a quite vulnerable situation.”

“Don’t you worry!  We’ll take good care of her!”  Murderface announced.  He’d finished carving into the table now – he’d given up at the second letter, giving their boardroom a bit of creative flair with FØCK chiselled into his place.  Ofdensen mentally added a new wood treatment to the monthly bill.

“Yeah, we’ll even teach her some words,” volunteered Nathan, lightening at the challenge, “We’re fucking good teachers.  We know _heaps_ of words.”

“Uh, thank you, Nathan.  Murderface.  That’s very kind of you.”  He was only going to try once more, and then that was it, he was letting it go.  “Now I’m going to caution all of you once again not to attempt anything intimate with her.  It will end very badly for everyone involved.  Do you all understand what I’m saying here?”

“Loud and clear.”  Pickles, bored, had leaned back in his chair, resting his sneakers on the table.

“Can you tell me what I’ve just said to you in your own words?” Ofdensen met Pickles’ stare on this one again, locking as he challenged the older drummer.  A sneer tugged at Pickles’ lip.

“Don’t fuck Toki’s sister,” Pickles said slowly.  “Cos she’s probably fuckin crazy, an’ will kill us all while we sleep.”

“Ya, or she have some terribles disease or somethings.  Typicals Norwegians.”

“Cosch schhe’s a virgin and they… have schpecial powersch.”  Murderface stared hollowly through the splinters of FØCK.

At last Nathan rose from his seat, bringing his hands down definitively on the tabletop.  “Cos fucking her would be like fucking Toki and _that’s fucked up_ ,” he declared, widening his eyes as he stared down the rest of the band to mumbled agreement.

Charles smiled.

“Something like that.  All right.  I think we’re done here.  Be nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steamed-Jellyfish illustrated Toki with the Costume Klokateers [here](https://steamed-jellyfish.tumblr.com/post/159025499109/after-playing-a-concert-in-a-place-of-icelandic) so close to the show's style, it's awesome!


	3. ASKE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hobbies: manicures, unintentional flirting, arson

Nathan didn’t care.  He didn’t care and it didn’t matter.  Caring wasn’t brutal and he  _didn’t care_ , get it?  But he did have a curious streak wider than a cat wrapped around someone’s tire and splattered across a road, and walking past the door to Toki’s room in Mordhaus he couldn’t help but feel the temptation to check out this Froyo chick. 

Not that he cared.  He was just.  Checking.  Having a stranger in his territory was a threat, and an unseen threat at that – she hadn’t left Toki’s room so far and it was almost five.  Maybe she was shy.  Huh.  Cute.  Nah he was just gonna… walk past… not like… just checking.  He backtracked, looking first to make sure no one was watching, and opened Toki’s door.

“Uhhhh,” he introduced himself, sticking his nose into the murky room, “Fro-… Froya?”  There she was, just like, sitting on the bed, looking up at him.  Nathan paused a second, his head jammed around the door, to take her in.  She did look a  _lot_  like Toki.  But, like… funny, he didn’t think she was conventionally pretty or anything, and he didn’t think of Toki in that way, but she was… kinda hot.  In a weird way.  With her hair up like that, big blue eyes, milky skin, perky little tits in her tight t-shirt.

“Hi,” said Nathan.

“Hi,” replied Toki, not entirely aware what the creepy feeling he was getting as Nathan checked him out was, and then he remembered he wasn’t supposed to speak.  Or speak English.  One or the other.  Ofdensen hadn’t been very clear.  “Uh.”

“Mm.”  Nathan kept staring at him, hand on the doorknob.  He jiggled it idly under a mammoth fist.  “Can I come in?”

“Uh.   _Ja_.”  Toki closed the book he’d been reading and skooched back on his bed as Nathan crammed himself into the room, making to close the door behind him and then thinking better of it.  What if Ofdensen was watching?  Wouldn’t look good.  He left it ajar instead.

“Uh, I’m… Nathan, I guess,” he growled, and Toki just stared up at him.  This was very surreal, this side of his friend.  He watched in pained silence as Nathan pointed to his own chest, saying again slowly, “I.  Me.  Nathan Explosion.”  Awkwardly he pointed at Toki.  “You?”

“Frøya.”

“Hi.”  Nathan’s panicked eyes shot down to his feet and the crawling feeling lifted from Toki.  Nathan never knew what to say to girls, not like, normal girls.  And Froyo had to be normal, right?  At least as normal as Toki, so not very normal, but superficially at least.  If she was estranged, did that mean she even knew about Dethklok?  She had to though, she looked hell metal.  The idea of black metal chicks had never really crossed Nathan's mind but now that he thought about it, chicks into Satan and blood cults and that whole erotic side of devil worship, it was.  Kinda hot.  Kinda.  Uh.

“Me… Nathan… sing.  Well.  Not sing, kinda... talk, like... it's like rap.  But screaming.  Rargh.”  Nathan mimed holding a microphone.  “In... in band.  Dethklok.  With Toki.  You… Toki?”  He pointed to Toki again and the Norwegian shrunk back in fear.

“No…”

“But uh, Toki…”  Nathan’s brow creased with effort, “He’s your brother.  I mean.  Toki… brother?  Same mom.  Uhh…”

“ _Ja._ ”  Toki shrugged.  His clear blue eyes followed Nathan as he shuffled up close, jostling the model planes hanging from the ceiling and finally dropping down to sit beside Toki on the bed, his weight bouncing the slight Norwegian.  The singer eyeballed Toki for an extended period of time, a thick, gross spectre of tension moving over them as Nathan loomed and stared.  Fuck, this was really hard, actually talking to a girl!

“Uhhhhhh.  You… like metal?” tried Nathan, and Toki stared at him.

“ _Ja._ ”  Nathan visibly relaxed as soon as the poor girl squeaked it out.  That was common ground at least; he was on even footing now.  The bed creaked underneath him.

“Like Norway... black metal?  Mayhem?  You know, that guy,” he grunted, and aimed a finger-gun at his head, miming shooting himself with a ‘pshw’ sound effect.  “Bang.  Dead.  Fuckin brutal.” Toki still didn’t have the courage to move.  Ofdensen had said to be careful how he sat, held himself, to be careful about showing too much of his hands which were auspiciously unchanged; now he sat on them, hunched over to hide his breasts and cowering from Nathan.

“I mean, not brutal.  That’s not brutal.  Killing yourself ain’t cool.”  Nathan covered his tracks, realising a countrywoman of the infamous frontman might not find his suicide quite so fun.  “But you know, like, it was… brutal.”

“ _Ja,_ Dead  _var ganske_ brutals _,_ ” choked up Toki, freezing up again as Nathan dropped a huge palm to grab his knee.  It was just a friendly gesture, but Nathan would never have laid a hand on Toki in the same way as male friends.

“That’s cool,” grunted the singer.  “What about Thorns.  Thorns are brutal.”

“ _Ja_ ,” Toki mumbled, quaking under Nathan’s grip, “Burzum.”

“Burzum!  Metal.”

Toki let out a squeak of affirmation.

“Hey.  You ever burn down a church?”  Nathan was letting the shadow of a smile cast over his face now, and Toki – feeling picked apart – panicked.  What was his story now?  His eyes darted around the room for some help and landed on his dethfone, sitting on the end of the bed.  Too far away, too obvious.  He looked up again to find Nathan staring into his eyes.  Too close.  Too big.  Fuck…

“ _Ja_ ,” he eeked and Nathan lightened up, impressed.

“Brutal.”  He squeezed Toki’s knee fondly.  “I don’t say this much so don’t let it get to your head.   But you’re okay, Froyo.”

Toki stared straight ahead as Nathan’s thick fingers curled into his thigh.  “ _Takker_.”

Satisfied, Nathan grunted and rose, patting the girl on the head with a huge black nailed mitt as he drew away.  She’d passed the test.  He tried to close the door nicely behind him but ended up slamming it anyway, making Toki jump out of his blank space and into the suddenly empty room.  He slumped on his bed as the anxiety rushed out of him, staring at his ceiling, his stomach tied up in greasy knots.

That had been weird, that tender, curious side of Nathan; not beyond the imagination but beyond Toki’s experience.  The closest touches he’d received to that in recent years had been from Ofdensen in times of crisis, struggling to move him without hurting him – Nathan had never been so careful, with a shoulder dug into Toki’s gut as he goaded him not to puke or a crushing fist around his throat.

His hand – now with a dainty black manicure, the gel nails sharpened to dull points – questing across the bed found the dethfone, and he drew it to him, holding it over his head to check his messages.  He hadn’t thought to yet and that was probably a mistake.  If Ofdensen wanted to get in touch that was their first point of contact, but Toki had just dropped it on the bed that awful morning and forgotten about it.  He was kind of surprised to find he had messages – and kind of disappointed there weren’t more.  Seemed like only one of his bandmates, informed he was missing, had bothered to check on him.

**SKWISGAAR (1)**

Toki opened the text, pursing his lips as he waited to see what the guitarist had had to say.

**fok u toki**

Oh.  But even as Toki’s heart sunk the phone hummed as it received another message, the new text lining itself up neatly beneath the first.

**fokkkkkk u**

**were ams u**

**dis real dik mov toki i hates u**

Toki smiled gently, murmuring to himself, “Aw looks, you miss me.”  He thought against replying, however – better not.  Toki was stupid, he knew that, everyone said so.  He was bound to fuck it up.  The phone hummed again.

**I HATES U**

**HATES U!!!!**

**ur dead i kills you when us geting bak**

**n i hates us sistr**

**i not even meets her n i hates her**

**fok us 2 boths**

Toki rolled his eyes, dropping the phone to rest on his chest.  He should have known Skwisgaar would be difficult about the whole thing.  The Swede was very silly like that, deep down he really missed Toki and Toki knew that was true!  This was proof see; without Toki, Skwisgaar was all alone with the Americans and they just had nothing in common, he started to feel alienated.  He was bound to miss Toki even though most of their friendship was a kind of chaotic, mutual emotional abuse.  Aw, it warmed the heart.  Toki was excited – though nervous – to see what he thought of him as a girl.  Probably wouldn’t be too impressed, Toki wasn’t really old enough for Skwisgaar—

The phone hummed again, vibrating through Toki’s ribcage until he lifted it to check.

**PICKLES (1)**

“Pickle…”  Toki thumbed swiftly though to the drummer’s message, anxious for another caring message.

**hey did toki give his fone 2 u? i can hear it goin off thru da door**

Toki bit his tongue and quickly turned the phone to silent. 

**nm just spoke 2 nate n he sez he saw it. yr bros a dipshit.  o well**

**hellllooooo froyo nice 2 meet u :)  dis pickles :) :) :)**

He sighed heavily, texting back to the drummer then deleting it.  Try again, this time less comprehensible.    _hi_.

**aw dis cool! :) u like da room froyo?**

_ja_

**cool :)**

Toki found himself slowly relaxing as he spoke to his old friend, even if it was via electronic device.  The calm didn’t last long, though.

**send pik? :)**

Toki blinked.   _hva?_

**pik! of u!**

**picture wit fone**

**picture fone**

**take picture, send 2 me**

**cuz I wanna c wat u look like … 4 reasons.**

Again with the weird fondness that was coming through.  Toki decided it was best to comply; he sat up on the bed and fiddled with the phone camera.  He’d never really understood how to use it, holding it at arm’s length and turning it around so that the lens faced him, groping with a thumb for the photo button on the unseen screen.  The first picture just looked too much like Toki, so he tried sticking out his cleavage a bit, pursing his lips, a higher angle.

After seven failed attempts he reached one he liked, cute and sexy and brutal, and sent it to Pickles.  The drummer didn’t hesitate to respond.

**aw yr a cutie! ;) c u at dinner yeah?**

Toki flushed with happiness that his friend approved of his new look, though that squinty eyed smile was a bit beyond him.   _ja_  he typed back and that appeared to be the end of it.  Pickles was probably busy; he always seemed to be busy somehow and never really get anything done.  Twisting his dreads maybe.  There were a lot of things Toki didn’t understand (he was, as noted, an idiot), and generally he just accepted the truth was lost somewhere in those unknowns.

It didn’t pay to be curious anyway.  Casting aside the phone, Toki pulled out his hair lackey and lay back on his mattress, letting his mind wander, his hands straying over the curves of his body again.  He’d been trying to distract himself with reading but hadn’t gotten particularly far.  It was important, Ofdensen warned, not to dwell too long on the new shape; not to get attached, not to excite himself, not to bring up lurking monsters he’d left lying to seethe over his body and mind.  In more dry terms than that, but Toki had a malleable imagination and he knew what a monster was when it was suggested to him.

Optimally Ofdensen would have preferred he take those sleeping pills and just stay out of life for a few days, but Toki was a curious guy and prone to stick his fingers in holes regardless of what might bite him.  And – well.  You take where this is going.  Toki wasn’t so keen on it yet – it was just so much soft folds and left his hand smelling strange.  Not bad just… not good, and he was well aware from messing with groupies that there was something he hadn’t worked out yet, cos like… well, it wasn’t working so far, so to speak.  Maybe he’d gotten a faulty version.  Trust his luck!

Absorbed in the numb, distant sensation of his fake nails trailed over his skin, the demanding bang on his bedroom door jerked Toki rudely back to reality.

“HEY FROYO BITSCH.  IT’SCH DINNER TIME.  GET YA HAND OUTTA YA PANTIESCH AND GET OUT HERE.”

Toki closed his eyes, letting his breath out slowly.  Fucks sake.  As he rose from his mattress, struggling to pull the buttons of the tight jeans closed again, he could hear the others banging around outside, mumbled voices – Murderface and… Skwisgaar?

“No yous - … she don’ts understand Murderface!  She only speaks the… the Norsk.”

“Well make her underschtand!”

“Okays…”  Toki placed his palms against the inside of the door as Skwisgaar paused, bringing his ear close to listen only for the Swede to pound his fist aggressively on the other side.  “HEY _.  AR  DET DAGS FÖR KVÄLLSMAT??_ ”

Fucking Skwisgaar.  He couldn’t speak Norwegian for shit, just this awful joking version that Swedes always used to mock them, throwing gibberish words into Swedish and lilting up the end into a question.  Skwisgaar in particular liked to raise his voice a pitch, imitating Toki.  It was insulting to his culture frankly!  And what had the Swedish ever given anyone but cross country skiing and ABBA?

Toki slowly wrapped his hand around the doorknob, waiting for Skwisgaar to try again.

“I SAYS,  _AR DET DAGS,_   _FÖR KVÄLLS_  ‑ ‑ ‑”  Toki shoved open the door abruptly, smacking the Swede in the face.  “ _Ohhhhh!_ ”

“ _Ja jeg vet. Jeg commer,_ ” the Norwegian squeaked angrily at Murderface, lurking outside as Skwisgaar clutched his nose in pain.

“What a bitch!  Yous just likes your brother!” 

Toki squeezed past them, ignoring Skwisgaar’s complaints and the feeling of Murderface’s piggy little eyes on his body, holding his head high and pulling his hair back up into its ponytail.  He’d fought hard for the right to have dinner with his bandmates, to not sit in his dark room just listening to records and failing to touch himself up.  He’d fought hard and he’d lost his moustache and he’d had his legs fucking waxed, so damned if he wasn’t going to make the most of it now.

But as soon as he entered the room Nathan had lit up just that little bit and Pickles moved his chair across a bit and did that squinty thing with his eyes and Murderface and Skwisgaar had loomed up behind him and… ooh, there was that creepy crawly feeling again.  Yup.

Toki was starting to think he didn’t like being a woman so much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> nathan - oblivious, flirtin'  
> pickles - oblivious, textin'  
> skwisgaar - very oblivious, pissed off  
> murderface - oblivious, loomin'  
> toki - fresh meat


	4. BLOD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a short one, plot plot, slow burn  
> my fantasy is dethklok buying me tampons and chocolate and maybe a little heat pack

**MORDHAUS**

* * *

 

Coming down the closest corridor to the band’s group leisure room, Ofdensen could hear their voices from within echo about him.  Much of the band hadn’t realised how intentional these acoustics were – with the vast distances within Mordhaus and their shared impatience, none of them had checked, and the ones who had noticed were too deprived of empathy to realise how it could be used against them.

Fortunately they rarely had anything important to say.  One sleep on from Frøya’s arrival and they were making good on their promise to teach her English.  A rare thing, though unbeknownst to Ofdensen or Toki: right at that moment they were having exactly the same thought, in more or less comprehensible terms - did any of the others realise that English was taught in grade school in Norway?

“Watch this, watch this,” Nathan could be heard chuckling, and while it didn’t sound cruel Ofdensen still found himself concerned for the new girl.  “Hey Froyo.  Say… ‘double penetration’.”

“Doubles penetration,” came Toki’s voice, put-upon, to laughter, and Ofdensen nearly smiled as he entered the room.

“No no!  Say, ‘pearl necklace’,” Pickles was goading Toki from his perch on the back of the lounge, craning over his troubled bandmate who had found himself trapped by the rest of the band, draped around him in various states of lazy and snacking – this had obviously been going on for a while.  The scene was underscored by the dull plunking of Skwisgaar practicing guitar, positioned at the other end of the couch and noodling away as he stared an angry hole through Toki.

“Pearls necklace,” said Toki, and Pickles tittered away with the others.

“Heh heh, classic.”

Toki was mystified by this one, but before he could question it – not in any way the others would understand – he saw Ofdensen.  The CFO was warmed by how the Norwegian perked up seeing him, sitting straight in his seat and fighting not to say anything.

 “Schay ‘pusschy’,” volunteered Murderface, giving Toki a prompting shove on the shoulder from where he sat beside him, toying with a knife in the upholstery.  Toki was in the process of squeaking, “Pussy,” back when Skwisgaar snarled from his corner.

“You can’t asks her that Murderface.”

“Why not??”

“It’s fucking stupid that’s why!  In Sweden ‘pussy’ is like, first word we learns in English.”  His long fingers paused on the frets with a strong D-minor.  Ofdensen, previously ignored, chose this point to interrupt before a fight broke out.

“Skwisgaar is right, guys.  Most Norwegians have at least a cursory understanding of English.  She probably finds this kind of patronising.”  Ofdensen met Toki’s eyes as the guitarist sunk back into his seat, doing his best to disappear as the other three turned on their manager.

“Fuck you, we were just fucking around,” growled Nathan from Toki’s other side, “She’s fine.”

“I –  I know, it’s just – what did I tell you about this?  Toki will be livid if he finds out you’re flirting with his sister.”  Toki's face sunk with horror as he realised what had been going on.  It wasn't just a fun game?  Oh no, and he'd played along...!

“We’re not flirting.  We’re just messing with her.”

“I’m not sure Toki will see the difference.”  Ofdensen decided not to pursue it any further though – word from Nathan was word full stop.  The point was lost.  He turned to Toki instead.  “Frøya, are you ready to go?”

“ _Ja._ ”  Toki had never been more ready to leave Mordhaus, but Nathan, looming over him, put his hand on the guitarist’s shoulder as he was rising from his seat.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Uhh,” Ofdensen eyed Nathan cautiously as Toki nudged the singer’s huge hand off his shoulder and slunk over to him.  “Frøya didn’t have time to pack so we’re going, uhh, shopping, uh, using some of Toki’s allowance.  So she has something to wear.  And to pick up some, uh, supplies; ironically considering how many of them you have, this place isn’t really outfitted for female visitors.  There’s not even a bin in the bathrooms ‑ ‑ ‑”

“And you’re goings to help her do that?”  In all of this, Ofdensen hadn’t expected Skwisgaar to protest – the affronted vibe he’d been giving off suggested he’d welcome some time alone.

“Well, someone has to ‑ ‑ ‑”

“Fuck that.  Someone else should go.  Yous the most borings guy in the world, you’ll convince her to wear something really borings too.”

Pickles took the cue to slide off the arm of the couch, eyeing up Ofdensen as he approached.  “Yeah, take a stylist or some shit.  If a chick’s gonna be hanging out with us then we want her to set a good example to our fans, you know?  She has to look hot, is what I’m saying.”

“And you don’t believe I’m capable of ‑ ‑ ‑“

Ofdensen was cut off by a collective negative, frowning as even Toki offered a meek, “ _Ikke egentlig._ ”

“I’m getting the sense that you guys want to come along,” he conceded, a foregone conclusion from the moment he’d mentioned it.  Three pairs of pleading eyes watched him hopefully, four if you counted Toki’s waiting for Ofdensen to refuse them.  But the CFO had never been as good at saying no as he was at cleaning up afterwards.

“Well… okay.  Just try to keep it classy.  And listen to what she says,” he conceded, ignoring Toki’s face dropping in horror.

“How do we do that!  Sche doeschn’t schpeak Englisch!” demanded Murderface, thrusting the knife he’d been toying with into the sofa.  The knives were multiplying.  Ofdensen ignored it again, looking instead to their lead guitarist, Skwisgaar trying very hard not to be singled out.

“Take Skwisgaar with you.”

“ _Fuck_.  I don’t want to go!”

“He understands most of what she’s saying, and he has a better grasp of her cultural context than the rest of you.”

“Cultural context?” asked Pickles, but Skwisgaar had already risen from his seat.

“No, fuck yous!  I’m not helping her!  This is bullshit!  Go fucks yourselfs ‑ ‑ ‑”

 

**MEGAMALL**

* * *

 

Skwisgaar couldn’t articulate how mad this Frøya made him.  Seething on a grey vinyl customer ottoman in a designer clothing store, the Swede’s steel blue eyes stared holes through the woman he accompanied, obliviously sucking on a fruit smoothie and trying to fit her large foot into heels as Murderface crouched at her feet.  Fucking Norwegian women, flat footed, flat chested, flat brained.  Fucking flat in bed.

“ _Are you fucking done yet??_ ” he growled in ‘Norwegian’, and Frøya glanced over at him all doll-eyed.  She kept looking at him in that weird fucking way, so needy and familiar.  Freaked him out.  She wouldn’t even speak back to him – just stared like that.  She had Murderface to reply, anyway.

“Don’t schpeak to her like that Schkwisgaar!  Freya isch a lady.”  The instant bond that had formed between the beauty (ppffft, thought Skwisgaar) and the bassist was disconcerting.  As soon as ‘classy lady’ had crossed Murderface’s mind as a concept he seemed hell bent on throwing himself under her heels, something Toki was revelling in.  Murderface had always been a close friend of his, but their uncanny familiarity came as bizarre to everyone else.  Women didn’t like Murderface.  Why should Frøya be any different?

But god help anyone who tried to keep Toki from his friends.  Having Murderface escort him around and proffer fuzzy pink sweaters and beanie babies was just too magical.  Even Nathan had gotten in on the spoiling – the smoothie had been his idea, on account of his mom being really into them or something.  Toki had been more interested in the cute girls at the Shakeramentum shack.  He’d felt Nathan’s wolfish gaze on him, sure, but the young women had been so happy and chirpy and lovely and bouncy, had such neat hair, gosh.

Skwisgaar was already on the phone to Ofdensen.  There was no argument to be had here.  “Where are you please, I have had enough, I’m wanting to go, now.  Like, _now_.”

“ _Fem minutter siden_ ,” chirped Toki as he headed towards the changerooms with another pile of Murderface selections.

“Shut up!”  Christ!  For someone who didn't speak English, she couldn't keep her damn mouth shut, could she?

 

**DRUG STORE**

* * *

 

“We’re almost ready to go, Skwisgaar.  Uh huh.  Yeah.  Uh huh.  Well we’re almost finished.  Just a few more things, then we’ll get going.”  Ofdensen waited patiently in line at the prescription counter, occasionally glancing around for his other two charges.  Probably going to the drug store with Nathan and Pickles was a bad idea, but they’d volunteered, eager to get away from the affectionate Murderface.  He was smothering in this mood, and sure Ofdensen understood trying to get away from him, but when it came to getting things done Nathan and Pickles were one of his last choices .

But they’d wanted to help.  But they’d volunteered.  Many buts.  They were here somewhere, lurking around and making jibes on women’s hygiene.  Ofdensen had figured fetching pads and tampons was the easiest quest he could send them on, one they’d get some amusement out of and possibly even learn something.  They were, however, taking an awful long time for something so simple.

“While I have you on the line, Skwisgaar, have you given any thought to who you’ll take to that diamond company gala in Stockholm later this month?  The organisers are asking to confirm the guest list, and it would be a good opportunity to seem, well, more… human.  Taking someone along,” he pressed, but the guitarist only groaned through the receiver.

“May I suggest that nice Polish girl, Stefania?  The model?  You haven’t seen her in a while.  Four months in fact.”

_Ugh, fucks that, she ams so boring._

“Well think about it.  With Toki absent they’re depending on you alone to represent your more discerning Scandinavian fans.  I’ll check back later, okay?”

_Okay, whatevers._

“Okay.”  The CFO abruptly hung up and went to the counter.  Typically this was Klokateer work but word couldn’t get out now, and the prescription had required some ill-advised string tugging.  But it’d be fine.  He already had a lead in Iceland.  Everything would be fine.

Over in feminine hygiene, Nathan was clumsily ripping open a packet of tampons as Pickles watched on in horror, his lips frozen over the neck of a bottle of tequila.  The brightly wrapped item Nathan pulled out was easily as thick as his finger.  “Holy shit.  Fuck.  That’s brutal.”

“Gimme that.”  Pickles snatched the packet, reading the label aloud.  “Tampomat: [for days when your enemies aren’t the only ones bleedin](https://www.facebook.com/357036844449457/photos/a.357037734449368.1073741827.357036844449457/577137152439424/?type=3&theater).’  Fuck.  Just, holy fuck.”

“Is she gonna bleed?  Is she?  Cos I need to know, that.  Is she gonna bleed in our house?”  Nathan stared hollowly through the thick tampon, into questions as old as man himself.  “Fuck.  That’s…”

“It’s brutal man.  You can say it.”  Pickles sighed sympathetically, patting Nathan on the arm.  “Just think how much time ladies spend bleedin.  Just, like, so much time.”

“So much blood!”

“Makes ya feel small, don’t it?  Makes ya feel… well, it pales in comparison, y’know?”

“I know!”

“The drinkin, the drugs, the extreme metal.  Everything.  It’s nothing next to bleedin out your pussy each month.  I mean, that’d be like bleedin out your dick for us.  Bleedin your balls out your dick.”  Nathan felt helpless to stop the nightmare of thoughts that piled on him as he listened.  Just… blood, and Frøya, and Toki’s room, and panties soaked in blood, and tampons, and bleeding dicks, and blood, and… shit.  Christ.

“Can we stop talking about this now cos this, it’s starting to get bad,” he mumbled, and Pickles lowered his head respectfully.

“Yeah.  Yeah, let’s.”  He took the tampon out of Nathan’s hand and put it back in the box.  “Okay, we got em anyway.”

Taking a swig of liquor, he grabbed an armful of boxes and lead back to the aisle, dropping most of them as he went, Nathan trailing along behind with a single packet of slim pads in his hand.  He’d liked the bright colours in the design, the happy women on it, the picture of innocent blue liquid.  None of this bleeding pussy stuff.

“Hey Ofdensen, we got the stuff!  We’re ready to go now!” yelled Pickles as they rounded back on the CFO, “We got the ones with wings, think that'll be cool huh, I think she should have wings!  Now get us the fuck outta here please, _please_.”

Ofdensen glanced up as they approached, pocketing the medication.  There was Pickles beaming with an armful of tampon boxes and a bottle dangling from his fingers, even Nathan with something to offer.  “Well done guys.  You’ve been very mature about this.  I’m impressed.”

“I never want to talk about this again,” offered Nathan, squeezing the packet dangerously.

“Okay, no problem.  Let’s fetch the others, and then we can go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> nathan - oblivious, carin'  
> pickles - oblivious, drunk, fuckin' around  
> skwisgaar - pissed off and creeped out  
> murderface - oblivious, smitten  
> toki - not bleeding yet


	5. JOTUNN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dick pics

**MORDHAUS**

* * *

 

Toki had been assigned a small group of Klokateers, mostly – he guessed, it was hard to tell – female, for day to day purposes as Frøya.  They were pretty nice ladies, took care of his makeup and hair, and earlier this afternoon they’d woken him from a long nap to announce he’d received a gift from a ‘secret admirer’, and he could hear their smirks on their words though hidden beneath their hoods.

It was Murderface.  It was obviously Murderface.  Apart from the occasional gibberish text from Pickles the others were having nothing to do with Toki since the shopping trip, but Murderface was sighing and languishing around like a tragic, the way he always got.  Toki couldn’t help but feel –  powerful? on the reception of the gift, which Murderface must have ordered out for as a second thought, since Toki was sure he hadn’t nipped off while they were shopping.

They were bath bombs anyway, presented on a fluffy towel with a note, skewered by a knife, that read: “Famine Stuff For A Faminin Lady” which Toki understood perfectly and found quite charming.  He immediately ordered a large number of candles brought to his bathing chambers and a hot bath drawn, overseeing the Klokateers pedantically as they placed candelabras and rose petals.

He’d envisioned it as very romantic, very devil woman you know, but with the existing medieval décor it looked more like he was about to summon the Dark Lord up through the plughole.  The steam made the stone walls perspire under his fingers as he waited, naked to the waist but uncomfortable disrobing any further, until they were done. 

“Okay, you ams dismissed,” he mumbled at last, taking one of the bath bombs in his sharp-nailed palm and nursing it like an egg as they left him alone in the candlelit gloom.  There was a lot of bliss in being left alone, in taking time to pamper himself and actively appreciate his body, but to Toki it was more like a puzzle – one he couldn’t quite work out.  This was supposed to work, he’d heard, he’d been told, relaxing, you know.  Pampering one’s ladyself.  He’d seen it in pornos.  It’d work.

Standing over the tub he dropped the bomb to lazily plop into the water, bobbing under the surface as it started to fizz.  It smelt nice, a syrupy scent of sugar, flower oils and rose.  Not very brutal but Toki couldn’t give a shit right at that moment; he undressed unceremoniously and stepped into the hot water, pausing a second to curiously rub his breasts as the steam left his body moist, and then relaxing into the bath with his legs sprawled, ankles up on the sides of the – uh, for lack of a better word, tub; more of a stone vessel.  As an interior designer, Toki was quite traditional.

He pushed the bath bomb around with his fingers a little as it fizzed wildly and floated around the surface.  When it came near his skin it tickled, almost a burning feeling, craters burrowing into it as it dissolved in the water like a dying planet.  Now that was pretty cool.  Toki considered he should be thinking of Murderface at this point but couldn’t even conjure the bassist’s face in his usually vivid imagination.  He spun the bomb with eddies created by his finger, then jumped as his phone went off from within his discarded clothes.

“Fuck…”  Drying his hand on his jeans as he fished over the edge of the bath for the dethfone, he leaned on the side to check who’d messaged.  Just another from Pickles, probably a string of miscellaneous characters as all the previous ones had been.  But no – when he checked it, he found that the drummer had sobered up somewhat.

 **hey babe srry abt that** , he’d written, and Toki felt fuzzy to be so respected.  _ok_ , he sent back, and barely had time to lean back in his bath before it went off again.

**wat u doin?**

Curious Pickles!  He’d always been a clever guy, very nosy.  Toki decided to humour him.  _bath_ , he sent, and Pickles immediately texted back:

**send pic?**

“Pickle!” blurted Toki at the phone, scandalised.  He  dropped the phone back into his clothes and sank deep into the bath with a sigh.  Fucking dirty creeps; and he knew Ofdensen had warned them against it.  Still they went after it like dogs.  Murderface’s polite entreats he didn’t mind so much, they were cute, innocent.  But Nathan tricking him into flirting like that and Pickles asking for nude photos, that was a bit on the nose!

Toki rubbed his hands over his skin, left silky by the bath bomb’s froth.  And Pickles had no excuse, he’d gotten laid right in front of Toki just a few days ago, if not more recently.  Toki by contrast hadn’t fucked for a week, he’d been so fucking tired from the tour.  Now he had some time to relax he was starting to feel frisky again, and he’d had no luck working out this thing on his own, so…

Emerging from the bath and dragging his aching bones to the exit, Toki poked his head around the door and indicated to the Klokateer on watch.

“Hello,” he greeted sweetly when she came close.  “I am feels lonely, would likes some company.  Could you go ask if there’s any nice ladies who’s like to hang out?”

The Klokateer visibly hesitated, starting and then going back on her own thought.  “Um, sire… sorry.  I can’t do that.”

“… what?” Toki wrapped his fingers around the door anxiously.

“The-the Chief Financial Officer says we can’t honour your requests for outside visitors, sire.”

The Klokateer had gone rigid with fear as Toki frowned at her.  “Not even nice ladies?”

“Especially not, uh, ladies, sire.”

This was supposed to be over and fixed quickly!  Instead he was standing out in the cold all wet and being rejected.  Disrespectful!

“Why not?” he demanded sharply, eyeing the Klokateer.  She could tell his mood was going foul, growing more and more tense with his clear gaze on her.

“Uh, sire…”  The Klokateer gestured blankly to Toki’s form, hidden from her behind the door.  “Your situation…?”

“Situation!  Ugh!”  Toki rolled his eyes aggressively and stomped a wet foot on the flagstones with a miserable slap.  “Just cos I’ms situation doesn’t mean I don’t gets… lonely!  You goes and tell Mr Big CFO he can sucks my dick!”

There was a long pause, the Klokateer meeting his gaze, and then she spoke sheepishly: “…with respect sire, he’ll have to find it first.”

“ _Ugh!_ ”  Toki slammed the door in her face and hurried back to the bath, sliding into the warm water again.  The bath bomb was completely gone now, dissolved into the infinite and leaving the water a gentle pink.  Toki sank deep into the pastel froth, fuming.  First they took his dick, then they took his moustache, now they were coming for his orgasms.  What else was he supposed to do?  He couldn’t work the damned thing on his own no matter how hard he slapped it around or tentatively sunk in his fingers.  Did Ofdensen want him to go crazy?

Just as the thought touched his mind, Toki’s phone chirped hysterically with a call – he didn’t often get those, and dove soapy-handed after the phone.  Fuck, speak of the devil and so he did appear: it was Ofdensen.

_Toki, I’m glad you answered.  Are you all right?_

The CFO’s measured tone wasn’t enough to calm the inevitable volcano of Toki’s rage. 

“WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO THEN??” he screeched, nails grazing the smooth stone of his altar-like bath.  Ofdensen just waited until he could hear Toki panting; breathing was a sign he would either recover soon or hyperventilate and faint.  Either way shut him up quickly.

_Just hold on until we’ve sorted this out.  Okay?_

“FUCK.”  Toki smashed his hand down on the stone, swearing again at the pain.  “I can’ts even looks at pornos on the computer with the others all creepy!  What’ll I do?”

No reply from Ofdensen.  Toki sank deep in the bath, his hair billowing out around him in the water.  “What do girls do when they wanna look at pornos?” he mumbled down the line, and Ofdensen took his time in replying.  Though their manager would act otherwise, Toki knew in his heart of hearts that women were a mystery to him as well.  He had as much clue as Toki did.

_Uh, books mostly, don’t they?  Erotic fiction.  Magazines…?_

“Books.”  Toki floated unhappily.

_Yes.  You know, you guys read that story a fan had written about you on the computer that night?  Maybe you don’t remember, you were going pretty hard ‑ ‑ ‑_

“I remembers,” growled Toki dryly, “What do I need to do to gets one of these porno books…?”

Another long pause from Ofdensen, but Toki recognised this one as a work-it-out-for-yourself-it’s-obvious silence rather than an unknowing one.  He hated this one.  _We, uh, have a library, Toki.  Just go there and ask the archivists, they’ll sort something out for you._

“Fine, whatevers.”  Toki hung up with a sigh, dropping his phone back into his clothes.  He only soaked a few minutes more before emerging and dressing; the Klokateers had picked something for him, vital considering he was so accustomed to wearing the same thing every day.  They’d gone for jeans and the pink fluffy sweater Murderface had talked him into – Toki didn’t bother with a t-shirt underneath, even dispensed of the bra, that infernal fucking thing.

He pocketed his phone to more garbled text messages from Pickles and padded to the library, meekly asking for directions along the way.  It was a long walk but Toki had felt cooped up in his room; the towering archways of Mordhaus, the distant and ominous thudding of Murderface practicing bass somewhere in the halls, gave him spirit to get through.

The library was nearly a cathedral, shelves towering above the ground floor so high above that the sunlight from the windows far above filtering down – a dying amber light as the sun set – barely reached him.  There was activity here, bustling archivists within the complex, but like most Klokateers, they stayed stealthily out of sight when a member of the band was around.  Toki felt enveloped in a cloak of silence and distant light, rippling through the building as he wandered bare foot through the shelves.

The head archivist on duty was waiting at a desk as he approached her.  She wore her glasses on the outside of her hood.  Nice touch.

“Hello, where can I find magazine?” requested Toki, and the archivist only tilted her head slightly.

“We have lots of magazines, ma’am.  What topic were you looking for?”

“Uh…” Toki pursed his lips, thinking of a polite way to put it.  “Girls… I mean, magazine for ladies?  For lady by lady about lady.”

“Okay, here.”  The archivist handed Toki a card with a reference number.  “Twenty sixth shelf on your right, this floor, at the end of the row.  Good luck.”

“Thanks.”  Toki left her there, counting the shelves as he walked along them.  He was already up to fifteen and the number on the shelf was in the hundreds, the whole library sprawling out and up above him.  He couldn’t imagine that many words if he tried!  Along the twenty sixth then, and he followed the numbers sticking out of the shelf to find the one that had been indicated – these shelves were row upon row of file drawers.  Experimentally Toki opened one, rolling the metal drawer out on its bearings, and there inside were hundreds of bright magazine spines, painstakingly filed.

He heaved a sigh of relief and sank to his knees, opening more of the drawers so he could browse.  Almost all of these were just ladies’ magazines in which Dethklok had had press, issues of _Metal Chick, RebelGirl_ and _Cleo_ – Toki put aside one of the latter curiously, and opened a few more drawers curiously.  In one he noticed a marked change in content, where rather than more carefully divided magazines by name, and maybe a few copies of each issue, the filed magazines were all the same: green spined, glossy, filling the drawer.  The section was marked ‘PL’ and Toki hesitantly drew one out, struggling to drag it out by how tightly it’d been packed in.  A very familiar face smouldered at him from the cover.

_P L A Y G I R L_

_Backstage Pass!  Meet our hottest rocker yet!_

_N A T H A N  E X P L O S I O N_

Toki turned the magazine over, double taking at the cover.  This was dated way back, must have been just after their first album careened through the alternative charts and changed everything for good.  Nathan looked mostly unchanged though a little less stocky, his broad white arms crossed over his bare muscled chest, his trousers low around his hips.

Experimentally, Toki opened another drawer, only to find it full of the green spines again.  He tugged open another to the same result.  And another, and another.  Fuck, there were so many of them!  Sitting in the aisle and leafing through the first pages of the magazine, Toki dialled Ofdensen for advice.

 _Hey there Toki, what’s up?_ came their manager’s sharp voice, clearly disturbed doing something important.  Toki didn’t care.

“What is ‘Playgirl’?” he asked, and noted the manager’s pause.

_Uh, oh.  You found some?  Um, Playgirl is pin-up magazine for straight women, Toki._

“Okay.  These ones are of Nathan?”

 _Oh.  You found that_.

“Yeah I founds them.”

 _Toki, don’t open it.  He’ll never forgive you._   Pfft, Ofdensen didn’t tell him what to do.  He leafed through a few more pages – just articles really.

“Why is there like, two millions of them?” he asked, and Ofdensen gave a rare snort of amusement.

_Ah, well, it’s a long story actually.  You see – and this is going back now, I’d barely even started at the time.  There was an opportunity and the boys thought it would be funny but the magazine girls only wanted Nathan at that point.  And he was naïve enough to want to please them.  So it happened, anyway; it wasn’t worth the grilling from the others.  Then girls started turning up at signings with them, which was the desired effect I guess, I mean, he was happy with that.  But as soon as a man turned up with one to sign – well, Nathan just couldn’t handle it.  That kind of attention.  He requested that we get them all back however possible, and we’ve been doing that since.  Buying them back mostly.  Some of them required a little more force to acquire._

Toki looked at the cover of the magazine he held and noticed it was faintly stained with dried blood.  Oh.

“It’s okay, he looks handsome then!  Which pages ams the interview?” he chirped, and Ofdensen warned again: _Toki, don’t open that.  You won’t like it.  Better to leave the past as the past, you know, let sleeping dogs lie._

Toki wasn’t listening.  He’d found the article – it was hidden at the very middle of the thick magazine, titled in capitals, _DETHCOCK_.  The article, a suggestive profile asking Nathan’s opinion on groupies and sex, ran down the side column while most of the spread was taken up by [a semi-nude of the singer](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_SxR6K_e1ASc/S8c638CsDDI/AAAAAAAAAWI/EOeZL7ZKLCs/s1600/peter_steele.jpg), rolled onto his front on a bed with beautiful white lilies framing his body.

_Toki?  Are you listening to me?_

“Yuh huh…”  Toki scanned the article and turned the page curiously.  Two more photos here, Nathan luxuriating on his back like a big cat, a needy pout on his steely face, the lilies obscuring the titular member.  Toki curled his lip in learned disgust but couldn’t help feeling drawn to the images.  There was something effete about it, feigning and wilting and sensual.  In this part of the article Nathan talked awkwardly about a perfect date, his halting answers described by a woman who clearly spent most of her time writing about werewolves ploughing maidens as ‘purring’ and ‘husky’ and ‘a voice like coffee and cigarettes over breakfast in a dingy café in the bad part of town’.

_Toki.  I have work to do.  Please promise me you’re going to put that magazine back._

“Pfft, yeah.”  In the second photo of the spread Nathan had a telephone pressed to his lips and a knife clutched in his other hand, piercing the sheet.  “I will.  I’m just gonna borrows some for a while.”

 _Toki ‑ ‑ ‑_   Toki hung up, pocketing the phone and dragging a fistful of the magazines out of the cabinet.  Hoisting them under his arm, he pushed the drawers closed with his foot then started to wander back to his room as night fell in the library’s halls, the original copy open in his hands as he slowly worked through the text.  English still wasn’t his strong point.  His phone went off again, but it was just Pickles:

**akhdstejfslr**

Okay, never mind.

He was back in the dim lit corridors when he turned the next page, and immediately stopped in his tracks.  Young Nathan Writhing Mutedly In The Flowers And Pillows was now Young Nathan Writhing Mutedly In The Flowers With His Teeth In A Pillow And His Fist Around His Hard Cock.  And…

“Shit,” mumbled Toki, putting the magazine aside a moment and holding up his hand, imagining Nathan’s in contrast, then doing some mental maths.  “Shit!” he said again and checked the magazine.  That was like three of Toki’s fists!  Fucking three!  That was like a full fucking foot!  Toki resumed his wander, mesmerised by the picture; he was sure, poking around, that he’d touched the back of his cunt with his fingers.  How was anyone supposed to fit a fucking foot in one of those?  And still they had chosen to cover him with flowers with his soft dark hair all curled and tangled and his sharp teeth piercing the pillowcase instead of the panther-slaying, blood swilling, murder hall prince of darkness he really was?  No wonder Nathan was disgusted.

And still Toki couldn’t pull his eyes away.  His fingers were feeling blindly for his bedroom door as he devoured the ancient article – it ended “oh explode in me, Nathan!” – when he heard a familiar voice down the corridor that made him jump out of his skin in fright.

“Hey, Toki.  I mean, fuck.  Freya. “  Nathan’s shadow cast long in the ochre lamplight.  “You look a lot like your brother from behind.  It’s kind of fucked up.”

“ _Ja_  ‑ ‑ ‑ _!!_ ” wheeked Toki, wheeling around and nearly dropping the magazines as they sloped out of his arms.  He desperately grabbed the door and threw himself in, chucking the magazines on the bed, losing one in the process and having to scramble back to fetch it.  As he skidded to the door on his knees and shot his hand out to grab it out of sight, a darkness fell over him and he looked up into Nathan’s bewildered face, poking through the doorway.

“Fuck, are you okay?” growled the singer and Toki ditched the magazine across the flagstones, spinning it under his bed before grabbing the door handle and pulling it closed on Nathan.

“Fine!  Fine!” he squealed and Nathan only resisted a moment, his massive hand prying open the door and then letting go as it slammed in his face.  Toki collapsed against it, breathing heavily as Nathan banged on the door above his head.

“Hey, come on!  Don’t – don’t – hey, come on.  I was just saying hello!  Jesus.”  He heard Nathan place his hands on the door and mumble to himself, clearly guessing Toki had retreated to bed.  “Just… calm down Nathan.  She’s just, what did he say, he said she was vulnerable, she’s just vulnerable.  Vulnerable.  It’s okay.  It’ll be okay.  Jesus.  Fuck… what the fuck.”

And slowly his footsteps retreated.  Toki could catch his breath again.  He was just about ready to go back to the article when his phone went off, scaring him stiff again – but it was only Pickles:

**srhwhtlgrj??**

Toki frowned at his phone.  _Ok pickle?_ he typed back, somewhat concerned, and the drummer soon replied.

**yeeh yebh ok. wat u doin?**

_floor_ , typed Toki.  _u?_

**bad**

… he obviously meant bed.  Toki watched with growing concern as he tried to correct himself.

**aad**

**bfd**

**bbb**

“Fuck Pickle,” he mumbled, still resentful over the earlier text.  Pissed and stressed and frustrated, Toki slowly typed out, _send pic?_ with a spiteful smirk as he sent it.  See how Pickles liked it now!  Feeling like a piece of meat…

Pickles sent a pic.

With a yelp of disgust, Toki chucked the phone across the room.  That did not just happen, that was not happening.  Of all the things he’d thought to accomplish this week seeing two of his bandmates’ hard dicks in one evening was not on the list.  _Fucking_ drunk Pickles sending him a picture of his gross fucking wrinkly pin cushion balls hanging out of his y-fronts, at least Nathan’s _Playgirl_ spread was tasteful.

Toki held his head in self-pity, desperately trying to erase the image from his mind’s eye.  He needed something to drink and stat.  Getting to his feet, he snuck open the door, checking the coast was clear before slinking out into the hall again and towards the closest fridge – in their shared leisure room.  Please no Nathan.  Please no Nathan.  Everything would be fine so long as he didn’t have to look Nathan in the eyes.

He had reached the fridge and cracked it open, his fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle of vodka, when a heavy, black nailed hand came to rest on the pink fuzz of his sweater-clad shoulder.

“Do you wanna explain this, or should we get straight to it?” snarled Nathan by his ear as he held up one of the glossy green magazines, his dark hair falling in a curtain over eyes dark with rage.  Toki’s heart lay still in his chest.  He must have dropped it on the journey down, so engrossed he was with Nathan’s engorgement. 

“I don’t like to hit women, so you better have a good fucking excuse why this was in the corridor outside your room.”  Toki stood slowly, turning to look up at Nathan.  There he was, barefoot and frail and fluffy pink in the face of this mountain, like a mere god facing the jotunn.  He gulped and composed himself, taking the magazine gently from Nathan’s huge paw, worrying at his bottom lip a second, ready to rebuke.

“Well?” demanded Nathan, hulking over him.

Toki took one last good look in his eyes, aware it might be the last thing he ever saw, and bolted.

He heard Nathan’s scream of frustration behind him as he tore off down the corridor, magazine in one hand, vodka in the other.  He ran so hard he couldn’t breathe, the flagstones flying under his bare feet, mind racing for an escape.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck!  He barely even noticed as he passed his own room, but that was it, wasn’t it?  He needed one of the others.  Murderface would protect him fiercely, even Skwisgaar would lock his door to save a woman.  But which one was Murderface’s room again?  In panic, everything had left him.

Nathan’s heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor as Toki swung from the first bedroom door he could find, falling into the room and winding himself on the bare stone floor in a desperate effort to escape before Nathan saw which room he’d gone into.  The vodka bottle skipped across the floor with an unholy clatter but didn’t break, and Toki stayed clutching to the magazine as the door slowly drifted shut behind him as gentle, slender fingers pulled it closed.  His vision swam, a form blurred above him in the yellow light, swaying, a smell like vomit and sweat and high octane alcohol penetrated deep into his senses.  He heard Nathan pound past the door, and slowly the figure came clear.

“What the fuck, yo,” slurred Pickles, staring down at him, wild eyed and still wearing only his underwear.  “Is that that Nathan porno magazine?  Holy fuck.  That shit’s filthy.  I ain’t seen that in years.”

And if Toki could have died, right there, lying on the floor of Pickles’ room with his sweater pulled up, his fingers touching the neck of a bottle of vodka and naked pictures of Nathan clutched to his chest, Christ, he would have done so in a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> nathan - oblivious, spittin'  
> pickles - oblivious, drunk, very impressed  
> skwisgaar - oblivious and sulking  
> murderface - oblivious, romantic overtures  
> toki - in so much trouble right now


	6. SVETTE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smut update  
> smutdate  
> do ya like the deftones?

**PICKLES' ROOM**

* * *

 

Pickles’ room was a hell as far as Toki was concerned, but if hell was safe tonight then hell was safe.  The air was thick with alcoholic sweat and heat from the drummer’s body, his dishevelled form swaying over the guitarist sprawled on the floor, something that sounded like Whitesnake on the turntable but could have just as easily been any other kind of shit hair rock to Toki.  Beneath the music, he could barely hear Nathan’s bellow of frustration down the corridor, and his gaze met Pickles’ unfocused eyes.

“Please lock door Pickle be lock door please!”

Pickles staggered back a step, waving his hand over the boards of his dungeon door until his fingers found the deadlock.  His eyes crossed in thought.  “… why?”

“Fuck Pickle please!” Toki fought back a pale sweat of terror, pushing his torso up off the floor to stare and beg.  “I do anything, Pickle, please!”

“I dunno, looks pretty sus to me.”  The drummer toyed with the iron lock idly, the urgency lost on him.  “I mean, what’ll they think, me and you locked in here together?  It looks bad.  You better get out, kiddo ‑ ‑ ‑”

“ _PLEASE_ , I sucks your dick!”

Fuck, why did that always just come out once he was on his knees?  Still it seemed to work.  Pickles frowned slightly but pushed the deadlock into place with a clunk.  “Oops.  Looks like it locked itself,” he murmured, giving an innocent shrug.  “Ya make a convincing argument, Yoko.  Who taught you that one?  Was it Skwisgaar?  It was Skwisgaar, right.”

“No Pickle, Pickle…”  Toki was just blathering now, cornered and sunk to his knees, his knuckles white on the magazine.  “I says a lie, I have been lies, Pickle ‑ ‑ ‑”

And the older man looked at him tenderly, with the kind of understanding only those bright green eyes had for Toki, someone who was kin to the cutting feelings of jealousy and anxiety like the others didn’t get.  As he stepped towards him Toki felt his heart, pounding hard in his chest, move sluggish like his blood had thickened.  Pickles, a womaniser, was still just Pickles; now he knew he’d understand.  And he’d make things okay.  At the very least let Toki stay until Nathan had calmed down.

Pickles stooped to fish up the bottle of vodka by Toki’s side, then, crouching there with his junk slung haphazardly in his y-fronts - laid a gentle hand on his head, levelling a long stare into Toki’s eyes.  Pickles’ gaze was intense, even with his sloppy mind behind; though it shut Toki up immediately, the hand grazing down his cheek to cup his jaw, a calloused thumb held up to his lips, shut him up on a far more profound level.

“Shut it, babe.  I won’t tell no one,” he murmured, and Toki could smell the hot bourbon vomit stench of his breath.  “It’s easier to play dumb, I know, I geddit.  You’re okay.  I’m happy.  I was just sittin here hopin for some company and a bottle and look what comes to me.  Yeah God.”

He rose and staggered past Toki to the bed, plopping heavily down to sit on its edge.  “Not sure what he’s getting at with the gay Nathan porno but maybe there’s somethin to it.  Subconscious, y’know.  Get the fuck off the floor babe and come over here.”

Babe.  Babe and babe and babe.  A kind of grey, nauseous horror rose up in Toki.  Even an inch from his face, even being told that he was being lied to, Pickles wasn’t realising.  Slowly he got to his feet and dragged himself to Pickles’ side, the drummer first guiding him down with a hand rested on the back of his fuzzy sweater and slid up to his neck as he sat, then folding against Toki’s side with his arms around his middle, exhausted and vulnerable and weird. 

“It’s okay, see?  Yeah, it’s all okay.  I won’t tell no one.  I won’t tell a soul,” Pickles was mumbling to himself in that sleezy, lizard voice he affected with women, nestling up to the cursed guitarist.  And Toki saw a door opening.  If Pickles wasn’t going to get it, well, who cared.  They were still friends.  He had craved this kind of contact, being held and cared for, since leaving his family home, and never really succeeded in finding it in groupies like the others seemed to.  So why the hell not.

Pickles would forgive him.

Toki put aside the magazine and placed his hand over Pickles’ arm, pulling him close as he leaned his head against the drummer’s balding head, nursed in the crook of his shoulder. 

“It ams okay, Pickle.  I tells you later,” he murmured, and then twitched as he felt a rough finger touch the skin of his back, one of Pickles’ hands having snuck under his sweater, but it didn’t bother him until he glanced down into his beggar’s green eyes, turned up at him in a kind of little kid desperation, spoilt and insincere.

“Ya don’t wear a bra, Tokyo?” he prodded, running his palm over the smooth skin of Toki’s back beneath the sweater, and the guitarist gave a shiver at the weirdly intimate touch.

“I took it off… uncomfyortable.”  Pickles withdrew his hand suddenly, groping over the bed for the bottle of vodka, lying where he’d abandoned it.  Toki grabbed it instead, unscrewing the top for his friend and handing it over placidly.

“Thank you,” said Pickles as he took it, sincerely this time, “For the present.”  He took a long swig of it, straight, then handed it to Toki.  Yeah, he was going to need this – sucked it back as well, rivalling Pickles gulp for gulp.  A competition he’d regretted in the past but he’d have to tonight just to keep up with his advances.

“So why's Nathan after you again?” slurred the drummer, collapsing against Toki’s side, and the Norwegian just shrugged.

“I finds his magazine.”

“Ooh yeah.  Right, right.  Impressive ain’t it?”  Pickles glanced up at him meaningfully and Toki pulled another noncommittal shrug.  If he kept his shock private and Pickles managed to reassemble his memory later, he might start to suspect Toki thought it was the norm.  And that was a rumour he wanted spread.  But the drummer just gave him a look, eyes wild with second-hand fear.

“Ooh, babe.  Fuck.  You know that’s not normal right?  It’s not even like, okay.”

Toki pushed his shrug harder.  “Yeah it normals, I mean, it ams normal in Oslo…”

“Fuckin ow, babe.  Who the fuck’s been reaming you?”  Pickles winced for him, putting his arms around Toki’s shoulders and pulling him to his chest as he entreated the ceiling:  “O lord, forgive her, for she knows not what she says!”

“Pickle, I knows what I’m says ‑ ‑ ‑”  Toki would have corrected him further if he hadn’t right at that moment felt the drummer’s slender hand, slipped under his sweater, get in a firm squeeze of his breast.  Instead he just squeaked, held tight to Pickles’ bare freckled chest as the strong fingers pawed at his breast with freaky precision.

“I’m kiddin, baby, I know.”  Pickles had turned his head down, mumbling into Toki’s hair.  “I could tell you were a slut the moment I saw you.  I mean, it’s not like Toki’s a prude or nothin, so why would you be?”

The cold glass of the bottle touched Toki’s belly briefly before a second hand joined the first and Pickles’ mouth came down on his neck, each sloppy kiss he planted up to his jaw burning there with unsettling confusion.  Toki gritted his teeth.  “Please don’t say these thing abouts my brother,” he hissed, rolling his eyes at his own blatant lie.

“It’s true though!”  Fuck, Pickles was right up against his ear now.  Toki tried prying a hand off his breast but it was like pulling a snake off butter, it just kept slithering up there.  “Toki’s a slut.  A total fuckin slut.  Just a total, common, garden variety, Norwegian hornbag... slut.”

Toki closed his eyes.  It’d be fine, it would have been totally fine, if it weren’t for those words.  Every time Pickles slurred out _Toki’s a slut_ it felt as though it had been branded across his loins in rising fire.  With the older drummer’s hands kneading his breasts til they were tingling and that hissed out every few seconds he felt the guilt pre-emptively, felt his father’s cold gaze on him and dying away, sinking as he opened his eyes again and looked upwards for the god Pickles had beseeched while he got a hand up his sweater.  Nothing there.  Nothing ever there.

Might as well make the most of it.  Pickles had sucked dick before, right?  That was what that second pussy rock album was about, he’d dressed like a streetwalker and he’d totally sucked dick.  He wouldn’t care.  With his body like this it just felt like Toki was steering a porno, albeit one starring his friend.  All the better, Pickles wasn’t hideous and he wasn’t packing as horrifically as Nathan, and he may as well try this body out while he had it.  And then one of Pickles’ hands plunged to grope the front of Toki’s jeans, and that was it.  Fuck it, honestly. 

“And you’re just a total, total whore, I knew it babe, I could tell ‑ ‑ ‑”  Pickles shut up when Toki turned his head, meeting his bandmate’s lips with a forceful kiss, the Norwegian’s strong hands rising to hold his jaw as he finally pushed back.  He tasted like vomit and bourbon as well, big surprise, but his lips were pleasantly soft and supple if chafed, not what Toki had expected from the guy.

“Fuck, babe,” struggled Pickles, muffled as Toki pushed him back, dragging him towards the middle of his broad mattress.  He was dully surprised that there wasn’t another woman hidden somewhere, considering Pickles’ propensity for threesomes, but tonight they were alone.  Somehow that made it weirder.  He gave the drummer a shove back, unlatching him from his body like a limpet to sprawl uselessly on the bed, and threw a leg over Pickles’ middle to straddle him, unbuttoning the tight women’s jeans he’d been forced into on the way – Pickles’ clumsy drunk fingers hadn’t had a chance getting them open.

Pickles gazed up, awe-struck, as his night rapidly turned around in the form of this Norwegian fuck goddess as she stripped off her pink fuzzy sweater to bare perky tits and toned muscles, shaking out her long brown hair and taking a deep swig straight from the neck of the bottle of vodka.  Yeah, okay, she looked a lot like Toki, Nathan had a point.  But like, Toki with _tits_ , it was an important distinction.

His hands slowly worked Toki’s jeans down his muscular calves, exposing black panties; as the guitarist lay himself over Pickles’ body, his sharp nails digging into his bandmate’s face as he held him still to kiss, Pickles rolled his hand over Toki’s hot, damp crotch with a firm pinch.  Immediately Toki sprung up, staring down at his friend, but Pickles just smirked from where he lay on his back, sawing his palm into the wet patch with his thumb drilling into Toki's clit.

Laying there on his sweaty sheets, bedroom eyed and foggy headed with his rust-red dreads in disarray, Toki was taken by how feminine Pickles looked – vulnerable and open and receptive, gentle and sweet and recoiling.  It struck him how easy it had been to make him submit, how naturally he’d taken to it, and those pictures of Nathan flashed through his head briefly like the pages scattering, flicked beneath his thumb.

He sucked back another numbing throatful of vodka to drown the image but choked as Pickles wound his fingers under the fabric of his panties and stuck them in his wet cunt.  Fuck, so what was the secret that turned it on like that?  In all the time Toki had tried playing with it himself he’d never gotten it like this, but he could feel Pickles’ rough fingers easily slipping over his swollen lips.  He folded helplessly as the drummer slotted two long fingers inside him, crumbling over him with his face pressed into the mattress by his head.  He felt Pickles’ press another burning kiss to his cheek as he thrust his hand deeper, crudely finger fucking him as Toki rolled his hips back against him.

“Fuck,” gasped the Norwegian.  He’d never felt anything quite like it.  Sure it was close to fucking with a dick, the same swollen sensation, desperation for release, but rather than a localised build it was like a balloon in his loins that needed popping, like a knotted muscle, like an itch Pickles rubbed perfectly.  He turned his head to look at Pickles’ flushed face smirking back at him, the oily smell of the redhead’s dreadlocks against his nose, and buried his face in the drummer’s shoulder, opening his mouth as a particularly firm jab landed on his clit.  He could hear Pickles snickering in his ear and wished he’d shut up.  Toki would shut him up.

“Ahhh ‑ ‑ ‑!” Pickles removed his fingers abruptly as Toki bit down hard on his neck.  His hands settled on the Norwegian’s ass, squeezing playfully, but Toki only bit him again, frustrated at his pleasure being withdrawn and eliciting another yelp of pain.  He quickly rolled off Pickles, dragging his jeans and panties off to release his lithe body, pale in the lamplight; if he was going to go then he was going to go all the way.

“Fuckin, don’t bite,” complained Pickles, rubbing his neck as he watched – admired even – as he was sure she’d broken the skin.  “You feral bitch.  Christ.”

Toki brought down a black clawed hand on Pickles’ junk, squeezing loosely, then with a determined frown yanked them down the drummer’s legs.  Pickles just lazed there, watching him from under heavy lids. 

“Sorry babe, uh - didn’t want to burst your bubble.  I don’t think we’re gettin much outta that guy tonight,” he admitted meekly as Toki rolled a lustful blue glare up to him.  Sure enough the beast had not stirred, showed none of its former glory from the picture he'd sent earlier.  Toki dragged on his long hair and face anxiously, hissing with frustration, and Pickles put out a gentle hand, stroking his thigh with the back of his fingers.

“Don’t worry, it’s not you.  It’s me.  Hey, it’s me.  I drank too much.  Way too much.”  True, too; now Toki looked through the clear eyes of frustration he could see Pickles swimming in it.

“Fuck you,” he whispered, peering through his hands at the drummer, “I fucking… hates you…”

“Maybe we can work something out, huh?”  Pickles’ fingers were trailing across his thighs delicately, teasing, and when Toki glanced at him his eyebrow was raised in a suggestive curl.  “Hey, bet I can show you something fun…?  Toki talks like they don’t do it in Oslo, babe.”  Though talk to the others and they’d never consider putting their mouths on a girl on any continent.  Pickles played along for them, but you didn’t get two happy cunts in your bed every night using just one tool.

“What,” growled Toki, but Pickles was beckoning, drawing him back to straddle his chest, then nudging on his thighs and ass, pulling him closer with purrs of “Further,” and “Come on girl,” like he was calling a dog.  Toki could feel his heart crawling up his throat as he got close to Pickles’ face, urged up until he was nearly straddling it, the drummer’s eyes darting between his swollen cunt and anxious face.  Slowly Pickles’ arms encircled his hips, pulling him down, and that burning mouth pressed up over his cunt, and Toki froze at the feeling of lust and branding chasing over his lips.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck!  That was gross!  It was his instinct to pull away, but Pickles’ strong, narrow arms were like a trap around his body, dragging him back down as his mouth traced sloppy over his labia.  Toki instead grabbed Pickles’ arm, thinking to rip them away, but found himself merely holding on for dear life as a sharp, firm tongue slithered over his soft parts.  Looking down he found Pickles with his eyes shut, looking angelic with his face buried there, lapping deep as Toki held on and dug his nails in.  He felt drawn down, with each roll forward a hard tongue creeping into him and stopping his blood in his veins as he scratched up the drummer’s arms, short red lines blazing on his pale skin, vanishing his freckles.

The swelling got bigger inside him, until it took up his whole body like a dying sun, overheating, nuclear.  Toki ran his hands up his sweat-glazed body as Pickles sucked deep between his legs, digging his palms into the muscle, his head in a thick red fog and sex drunk in a way he’d never been before.  Pickles’ sharp tongue kept prodding that sweet spot, threatening to tip him over as he held himself helplessly up, voiceless like a Babylon; but even as he craved it so badly he could feel it ebbing away.  The heat was still jammed over his cunt but the lapping had stopped.  Toki dreaded to look, but forced himself to anyway, shifting his hips back from Pickles.

The drummer’s arms fell away from him as he retreated.  For a fleeting, horrific second Toki thought he might have suffocated Pickles, but there was a more obvious answer closer to the truth: with his face jammed in Toki’s crotch, the drink had finally gotten to Pickles and dragged him into a deep sleep.  It was only confirmed with a shallow snore before Toki pushed his friend’s mouth shut.

“Oh, Pickle,” he mumbled sadly, watching the tail of his orgasm disappear into the darkness again.  How unfair.  What was the fucking point, really.  “I really hates you, I really really do.”

Toki sunk down beside Pickles, wrapping his arms around him as he cuddled up into the sweat damp sheets to sleep.  Might as well make the most of it, right? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> Nathan - oblivious, destroying things  
> Skwisgaar - oblivious, really intently practising guitar  
> Murderface - oblivious, writing love letters  
> Pickles - oblivious, drowning in curse'd pussy  
> Toki - not_fair_lily_allen.mp3


	7. BLÅMERKE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mahdehls an cahktails?

**PICKLES’ ROOM**

* * *

 

Pickles awoke with a start to his alarm the next morning, his stomach lurching in a vile gesture towards his throat.  Another day in paradise with a girl cuddled under his arm, stale pussy on his breath and morning wood.  Placidly he let his eyes drift closed in the darkness again, bracing himself against the shrill beep of his alarm just a few more seconds.  The girl squirmed against his side.

“Ohh fucks that shit off!” she squealed, burying her face in their shared pillow as Pickles hauled himself up.

“Okay, okay!  Fuck, it’s here somewhere…”  He groped in the darkness of his bedside table for the alarm, toppling empty beer cans with a clatter until he found the button and silenced it.  Scooting back towards his companion, Pickles put out a hand to trace gently over her body, feeling her out in the dark.  He didn’t remember much from last night but, uh, his mouth tasted like a cunt so that was a pretty solid hint as to what had happened.

Her outburst had jolted his memory: yeah, he’d fucked Toki’s sister, right?  Almost worth the thumping headache.  Hadn’t Murderface said she was a virgin?  Eeeeeeesh, well, at least she was learning from a master hey?  Idly Pickles rubbed his hard cock, feeling her up with his other hand as she curled into the pillow to sleep again.  She was tall, very tall.  Adequate tits.  Pickles was used to just rolling over and sinking his dick into whatever was lying next to him, but he felt a little more delicacy was in order here, lest he get a taste of Toki’s left hook again.

Yet curious, Pickles reached for the light – kept dim, he wasn’t an idiot – and blinked his bloodshot eyes clear as he surveyed the strewn covers and lithe body face-down and clinging to his pillow.  Sure, she had that Nordic beauty thing going, pale skin rosy against his red sheets, glossy hair strewn over his pillow.  But now that he looked, really looked at her, cuddled up and snoozing, her makeup rubbed away and smudged by making out the night before, there was something… off.  Something not right.

Pickles slunk forward, taking a closer look at her face.  Experimentally he put out a curled finger to her top lip, mimicking the curve of Toki’s moustache, then immediately sat back, eyes wide as he took in the full picture again, hand raked through his thinning locks.

“Aw, hell…” he eked, covering his mouth.  “Aw, no.  No, no, no.”

Now that he saw it he couldn’t un-see it. 

“Aw fuck.  Aw boy.  Toki.  Toki, wake up.  Toki.”  Pickles reached out for the guitarist, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him awake.  “Aw Toki, fuckin why.  Oh, fuck.  I - I’m gonna puke.”

Toki slowly surfaced to Pickles falling face-first off the bed and dragging himself to the toilet set in the wall beside it.  He nestled the pillow a moment, unsettled by a disturbing nightmare about giving birth to a foal with Pickles’ face, as he came around to Pickles’ words – taken out of the mouth of the still-glistening horse now, the relevance of being called by his name occurred to him in a bolt that jerked him upright.

Pickles was retching into the bowl.

“Pickle, I ‑ ‑ ‑” Toki started, but the drummer cut him off with, “Hold on a second,” and a liquid heave.  Toki wrinkled his face.  Smelt like beer and stomach acid, nothing else.  Stupid Pickles, drinking on an empty stomach.

“I’m sorry I lies to you,” he finished when Pickles had stopped vomiting, the drummer’s head bowed deep into the bowl with self-pity.  “I didn’ts know what to do else.  It’s a magic thing.  Charles says they’re gonna fix it but I just didn’t knows… what else to dos.”

“Oo-kay,” groaned Pickles from within the porcelain.

“Um, how did you…?” Toki quested, and the drummer laughed, a bitter little thing digging in at himself.

“Oh, like, I dunno.  I just realised then.”  An internal double kick pedal of regret worked at Pickles’ ego like a machine gun.  It was so _fucking_ obvious.  Toki hadn’t even tried to disguise his voice.  Drunk Pickles had been misled by his own dick.  That traitorous bastard.

“Is that why you pukes?”  The pain in Toki’s voice grated against Pickles’ hangover as he finally drew up, leaning his arms on the toilet bowl to look at the girl on the bed with a weak grimace, vomit strung down his chin.

“No, Toki.  I am pukin cuz I had Xanax for dinner chased by straight vodka,” the drummer explained with a queasy smile.  “Dude, ya didn’t think… aw, hell.  Don’t look at me like that.”

Those dumb, sad blue eyes said yes, Toki did.

“Look, what’s more gay?  Doin somethin gay, or _gettin worked up that you did somethin gay?_   Hey?  Thinkin about it all the time?  I’m tellin you it’s that one, right there, trust me.  I mean I… done worse, like, drunk... bad… ohh, weird nights.  Really weird.  But I don’t think about it, so who the fuck cares.  Anyway you got tits and a pussy, that makes it okay, right.”

“Uh,” said Toki.  All this was telling him was, well, holy shit.  Pickles really had sucked dick before.

“It does.  It’s fine.  They suit you – ough.”  Pickles was starting to heave again, just blurting out, “The tits, really suit you,” before he was overcome by another wave of vomit.

“Please don’t tell the others.”  Toki slipped to the edge of the bed while Pickles was face-down, fetching his jeans and panties.  He was about to pull on the latter when he noticed their state – hell!  They were gross!  What had happened last night!  He shot a glare at Pickles and then squeezed into his jeans, kicking the underwear under the bed.  His phone, stowed in the trouser pocket, had a bunch of missed calls and one remaining message on it from Ofdensen.  **Toki, I’ve spoken to Nathan.  Everything’s fine, but please come and speak to me ASAP.** Hmm.

“Pickle?”  The drummer looked up at him from the bowl, looking small and pathetic where he was crouched naked on the stone.

“It’s okay, dude, don’t freak out.  I won’t.”  Toki looked very hot from this angle, standing over Pickles shirtless with his hands hooked into his jeans, and Pickles started up that kick pedal again as flashes of last night started to whip at his memory.  He rested his cheek against the toilet seat, looking down Toki’s body again.  “Aw look, you did your toenails.  Cute.”

“Oh.” Toki looked down, following his gaze.  “Uh, yeah, Charles does that, he does it all.  I mean ‑ ‑ ‑”

“Charlie gave you _tits?_ ”  Pickles clutched the bowl desperately.

“No!  Just the… just the nails.  He gets someone to… does it.  You should ask, gets it done.  You like that right?  It’s good, it tickles.”  Toki gave a weak smile.  “Tickles Pickles.  A tickle for pickle.”

“Please don’t ever say those two words next to each other when you’re talkin to me, again, ever.”  Everything in Pickles’ body hurt, but nothing more than the slow realisation he’d sent Toki a photo of his dick.  “Ohh boy.  Fuckin, get outta here Toki.  I’m startin to remember shit and I don’t want to see you while I rethink, just, everything in my life leadin to this point.”

Toki gave a sigh, glancing back at the naked drummer as he scooped up his pink sweater and pulled it over his head.  He wasn’t particularly sentimental regarding the night before, just a bit miffed about not getting off – but he still couldn’t help but feel hurt by Pickles’ haste to get rid of him.  He’d thought they were pals; and it wasn’t much more than palling around with Pickles’ dick out, right?  That had happened before watching TV late at night, once or twice, though granted Toki had tried to ignore it.  But it had enough gravity to make Pickles want some Pickles The Drummer® Alone Time™, something that weighed quite badly in Toki’s mind.

 “Okay, well, sees you,” he squeaked, adjusting the sweater. “Don’t tells anyone and I won’t think abouts it okay?  Charles is gonna fix it, I knows it.”

And with that, he picked up the magazine, lifted the deadlock on the door and slunk out, taking a bare-foot walk of shame back to his room.

Pickles wallowed in his self-pity a while before rising from the bowl, his hangover pounding heavy and dragging his face down as he staggered across the room.  He slowly collected his discarded clothes from the floor, pulling them on over his stale sweat, then collapsed into the dresser to check his dreads were lying flat in the mirror that sat above it.  Smashed, of course, but was anything in this room not?

Steadying himself with both hands on the shaking dresser, he lined up his reflection in the mirror shards.  Face… vomit residue.  Bags under eyes.  Visible headache.  Fuck off massive purple hickey ‑ ‑ ‑ wait.  Wait just a minute.  Pickles slowly raised his hand to his neck, touching the pierced bruise lightly and wincing, lurching forward over the dresser to examine it closer.  Then he noticed the scratches on his arms.  Neck.  Shoulders.  Cheek.  The tooth marks swimming in the bruises.

“Holy _shit.  WARTOOTH.  WHAT DID YOU DO?!_ ”

 

**MORDHAUS KITCHEN**

* * *

 

“I dunno, it’s just a bit full on.”  Nathan stared past Murderface’s head, sat backwards on one of the kitchen chairs with his forearms and head propped on the ornate demonic backing.  “That sounds so bad.  You know, growing up like that.  We shouldn’t have been so… you know…”

“Well I schtill don’t believe you!  I mean, sche’s into me!  The way sche looks at me!”  Murderface leaned forward on the table, his meaty head lolling on his hand.  He cast his dull gaze over to Skwisgaar, lurking by his shoulder like a haunted tree. “You can schee it, can’t you?  I don’t believe it!”

“If Charles says it ams true, then it ams true,” conceded the Swede darkly.

Nathan gave a little grunt of defeat at the thought.  He still felt devastated, his insides boiling with guilt over threatening blows to the girl. It was easy to be angry at anyone who looked like Toki.  She hadn’t deserved it.  Just a conversation with Ofdensen had been enough to convince the hulking vocalist of this fact – Nathan was easily mislead by sob stories, and the magazine theft was nearly forgotten now his worry buttons had been pushed. 

“Nope!  I don’t believe it!”  Murderface was insistent, but was cut off by the door opening and admitting a bedraggled Pickles, fresh faced from a shower and suddenly dragging his feet as he observed the gathering.

“Ohh, shit.  You’re all in the kitchen.  Oo-kay,” he mumbled to himself as he made his way towards them. “Well, this sucks.  Hey, hey dudes.  Hey.  Good mornin.  It sure is a lovely day, is it not, a little chilly don’t you think?”

“What the fuck are you wearing,” snarled Nathan.

Pickles was wearing a large, unfashionably paisley scarf, by the looks of it left to him by a female visitor sometime in the late 80s.  It floated nebulously around his neck and shoulders, covering the worst of the lovebites, but the drummer still looked pretty beat up for his run in the night before.

“I said, It’s A Little Chilly Don’t You Think?” he stressed, rearranging the mass around his neck anxiously.  “I thought I’d just… you know… just a little?  You know.  Just don’t ask.  Why are you all here anyway?”

“Okay.”  Nathan looked at Pickles’ sneakers a second, then back up at him, luggish.  “Froyo’s gay.”

“Uh,” said Pickles, frowning at him, and then when no one jumped in to explain, finished with a sceptical, “… huh.  Okay.  And how do you know, this, then?”

He guessed it was plausible.  Toki had demonstrated his affinity for women before; it followed logically that this hadn’t changed, and therefore: lesbian.  Now he thought about it, the look was pretty dykey.   But Pickles had already sifted through his handful of memories from the night before, and he remembered well the cursed guitarist on his knees begging to suck Pickles’ dick.  Whether that had actually happened was beyond his reach, but it was the intent that counted.  So Toki swung both ways.  Couldn’t say he hadn’t suspected.

“Charles told me about it.  We had… a conversation.  And it’s true.  Now I can see it.  At that shake place…”  Nathan’s gaze went blank again as he remembered the girl sizing up the women at the Shakeramentum shack, more interested in their tight croptops than Nathan telling her about wheatgrass shots.  In hindsight it made a lot of sense.  He imagined cold, white Norway, a tiny town, hyper religious parents.  A fight, or maybe just vanishing into the night, leaving her brother behind as she escaped to Oslo and free love and black metal.  Holding the hand of a girl with dyed black hair in the light of a burning church…

Oh, shit.  Now he was having feelings again.  Nathan slammed down his hands on the back of the chair he straddled.  “Fuck this.  I need a drink.”

Pickles looked to the others as Nathan got up and rummaged about, but they were yielding nothing, Murderface scraping a knife from a handful across the table surface to a heinous screech.  Skwisgaar merely shrugged.  “It ams true.  It must be true.”

“Okay, I’m just pickin up a little bullshit on this one.”  Pickles flinched as his phone went off, dreading a call from Toki.  The screen said worse: Ofdensen.

“Aw, no!  Go away!”  Pickles mashed buttons in an attempt to hang up but only succeeded in answering the call on speaker, the manager’s voice clearly coming through:

_Pickles, can you join me for a meeting in my office?  It’s important._

“Fuck you!”  More button mashing.  Skwisgaar sniggered at him.

“You ams in troubles.  I bet it ams about your lady’s scarf, ha.  It is, how d’you say ‑ ‑ ‑” he jibed, helped along by Murderface lamenting:  “A fashion crime.  It’sch a crime.”

 _And tell Skwisgaar to confirm his guest for the gala with me while you’re there,_ came Ofdensen’s voice, and the Swede’s chuckling stopped abruptly.  “Oh, fuck that.”

“Fuckin, whatever.”  Pickles finally found the disconnect button, burying the phone in his pocket again.  Everything hurt.  Everything sucked.  “Well, later, I guess,” he said, and shuffled out again, less the beer and ice pack he’d come for in the first place.  He could just hear Nathan add, “I just wanna do something nice for her, you know?” as he left, and was suddenly glad he’d escaped.

Pickles took a lift with a passing maintenance buggy to the manager’s office, trying unsuccessfully to coax the Klokateer driving into sharing a blunt as his scarf whipped in the breeze behind them (all Klokateers had been cautioned against taking anything Pickles offered them.  Not all of them obeyed, but ingesting anything Pickles had gotten hold of was a gamble with hallucinating, vomiting death at best).  He thanked them at the office and let himself in; Ofdensen had tight security, but somehow it was always open when Dethklok came by.  He had nothing to hide from them.

Nothing except Toki.

Ofdensen stood from his desk as Pickles entered, inviting him to sit although Pickles could see him choke back, ‘could you please refrain from smoking cannabis in my office’ out of duty.  It gave the drummer great satisfaction to see Ofdensen cave to him, to squirm back into a subservient role.  Pickles did not sit.

“Okay.  Fine.”  Ofdensen sank back into his chair.  Yeah, that was right.  Fucking alpha wolf here.  Alpha, pack leader, Pickles the drummer.  “Do you know what I want to talk about?”

That cool gaze was infuriating.  Pickles narrowed his eyes.  “I didn’t fuck her.”

He made hostile eye contact as he stubbed out the crumpled end of the blunt in Ofdensen’s ash tray. The manager let the beat fall between them without a twitch of expression.

“Well, uh, I wasn’t going to imply that, Pickles, but since we’re on the topic, could you take off your scarf please?”

Pickles’ hands leapt to the soft fabric, holding it close.  “What, this?  This is just a… it’s nice.  Huh?  It’s real nice.  It looks good.”

“Pickles, take off the scarf.”

“It’s fine!”  Pickles could feel the rage boiling in him just looking into those flat eyes.  “I’m fine!  I didn’t do nothin man!  She’s untouched!  She just slept on my bed!  Nothin happened!”

“I believe you, Pickles.”  Pickles gave a shudder as Ofdensen rose from his seat again.  The fucker meant business.  “But can you just take off the scarf?  It’s important.  This stays between you and I – I just want to check something.  Could you do this, just this once?”

Deliberately sluggish, the drummer unwound the scarf from his throat and bunched it in his hands, dropping it on the desk in front of Ofdensen.  The manager frowned at the ball of fabric, spotted with blood, and then glanced over Pickles’ wounds.

“Tip your head this way please?” he asked, indicating, and Pickles obeyed, feeling like a show dog.  “Uh, well, that – that doesn’t look good, Pickles.  I think a trip to the hospital is in your future.  We need to get some antiseptic on that stat.  Human bites are very prone to infection, you know, and ‑ ‑ ‑”

“I didn’t fuck him.”  Pickles crossed his arms stubbornly.  “I didn’t fuck Toki.  Nothin happened.”

“I never said it did.  Glad you realised.”  Still Pickles saw a glance of concern bolt across Ofdensen’s firm countenance.  “I’m just concerned ‑ ‑ ‑”

“I didn’t do nothin!  Charlie!”  The manager leaned back as Pickles started to get in his face, as usual, gesturing wildly, his hair whipping around his shoulders.  He couldn’t take his eyes off the obvious bite marks, though, his gut sinking with concern.  “I didn’t – I didn’t fuck him!  That’s fucked up!  That motherfucker, he’s fuckin lyin to you!”

“Pickles, I know – Toki hasn’t said anything to me ‑ ‑ ‑”

“This is bullshit!  I didn’t do nothin, I didn’t fuck no one!”  Pickles pushed the ash tray off the desk to smash at his feet.  “You know?!  Suckin ain’t fuckin Charlie!  Fuck!”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”  Ofdensen picked up the scarf, offering it to Pickles again.  “I’m just concerned, Pickles, if you’ll listen for just a second.”

Pickles put on the scarf, his shut mouth as much as Ofdensen was going to get. 

“I see a lot in this job.  I’ve escorted women out of this building with hallucinations and burns and black eyes and bottles in inappropriate places.  I’ve taken women to the hospital from things you guys have attempted.  But in all my years, I have never, ever seen a woman leave Toki’s room with so much as a scratch on her.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, he’s a gentle dude…” Pickles said, then his hand leapt to his neck as he met Ofdensen’s concerned gaze, like coffee through a cold drip, sharp and bitter.  “… oh.  Uh… shit.”

“Exactly.  I’m not saying anything happened, but _hypothetically_ , if it did, then it’s unprecedented.  Whether it’s something to do with the curse or something else remains to be seen, and frankly between you and him.  But be careful, Pickles.  I can keep an eye out for you, but that’s all.  You already ignored my warning; I hope you’ve learned your lesson.  It’s not a good idea to get close to Toki.  You will regret it.”

The drummer took a deep breath, holding his scarf close.  “Okay.  I geddit.”

“Thank you.”  The grey rage of Ofdensen’s anger receded, the sun coming out in his face again.  “Did Skwisgaar tell you who he’s taking to the gala, by the way?  It’s really quite urgent.”

“No.  He seems pissed.  What gala?”

Ofdensen sat again, rearranging his notes before him.  “It’s just a – like a diamond company?  From Stockholm.  It’s all pomp, just cocktails and models, you know the type, but he’ll enjoy it.  Toki was meant to go too but, well, circumstances… you know.”

“Models and cocktails?  Can I go?”  Pickles put on what was hopefully his most trustworthy face, but after their fight, Ofdensen was easy to push.

“Yeah, I mean – I guess so, sure.  Instead of Toki.  Mind you, one of you should probably take him with you or he’ll feel left out ‑ ‑ ‑”

“Whatever, man.  Sounds fun.  Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> nathan - oblivious, empathetic  
> pickles - KNOWS, way too old for this shit  
> skwisgaar - oblivious, hassled  
> murderface - oblivious, sceptical  
> toki - re-reading the playgirl article


	8. HJUL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roller derby circle pit

**OFDENSEN’S OFFICE**

* * *

 

It was rare for anyone to ask after Ofdensen’s personal opinion at all, at least until they got close, and then when it did come up, most often they just asked why.  Why put yourself through the gruelling rigours of overseeing Dethklok?  There were many answers to this, all of them not the heart of the matter and depending on the day.  Today, the answer was: what other job could you spend a fortnight between Asia and Scandinavia with a private jet?  Oh, the places you’ll go indeed.

And the people you’d meet.  Now, he wasn’t exactly sure where the woman he was speaking to via the videolink was streaming from, but he supposed with the right connection even a barn could have wifi these days.  He’d never been particularly taken with the tendency of these mystical figures to cover their faces either, but if she was going to wear the hood low there was nothing he could do about it except stand in blatant contrast himself.  Ofdensen was nothing if not forthcoming.

“Uh, and thanks for finding the time to speak to me in person, Ástríður.”  See, what was the point of hiding her face when he knew her name and profession?  Surely it was just a matter of asking around or even looking her up in an address book.  There weren’t that many people in Iceland.  “This is an urgent matter for us; the sooner we get to the bottom of it, the better.”

 _Urgent, yes.  I understand._   She sounded younger than he expected.  All Ofdensen could make out in the gloom and static of the picture was her mouth, which was pretty, small perhaps, with a musical, enchanting accent.  A weakness of his maybe but Ofdensen had always been fond of Scandinavian accents.  Lucky in his very specific line of work.  _I have been asking, the divination, and I think I have some hint to how we’re about to fixing this.  But I cannot be sure without having meeting to your friends._

“That shouldn’t be a problem.  We have a brief stopover in Stockholm on Saturday, and then we’re straight on to Keflavík.”  He frowned slightly, rolling the word around his tongue a second time.  “Keflavík.  Uh, sorry.  My Icelandic’s not what it used to be.”

 _It’s okay.  I understand.  I’m looking forward to meeting of you._   The woman clasped her hands before her mouth.  Decidedly younger than he’d thought.  He’d had a hard time tracking down anyone knowledgeable on the more manipulative magics of the island, and largely when it came to these indigenous arts the remaining practitioners were elderly, the last of a murdered culture.  Then again, if they could turn Toki female, there must have been some element of shape shifting possible.  He shouldn’t let his guard down.

“Well, thank you.  You know you’ll be handsomely rewarded.  Uh, in the meantime, could you give me any guidance as to what we’re dealing with here – if it’s a curse or… something else?  That was the real purpose of this call, I, uh, admit…” he trailed, seeing her face grow curious rather than grave.  Not a good sign.

 _Mm hmm!  Curse, yes, I think – you could say that.  Or ‑ ‑ ‑_ She faltered, and Ofdensen pressed: “Or?”

_Or… a lesson.  The goddess, she is vengeful, but to… you see, when the lady is angry, often she only wants to teach a lesson, not to be harming.  If your friend learns well and can tell the goddess what he is taught then the lesson will end._

Ofdensen tried to disguise the massive sinking feeling in his chest like an anchor dropped into the bottomless depths, its chain hanging suspended in the deep.  “Uh.  Okay.  I… I guess he could… learn a lesson.  Maybe.”  Doubtful but perhaps if he was forced ‑  perhaps enough to convince her, for long enough.

_The question then is to what is lesson… and if this is a lesson of your one friend, or all of them.  I visit Stapafell; the mountain is restless.  So I question.  I think you must address the goddess.  I will help you to do that._

“Thank you, Ástríður.  I look forward to it.”  Ofdensen swallowed the cold, slippery misgivings he had as she smiled back at him.  It’d be fine.  He’d make it fine.

 _Yes, I’m looking forwards to meeting you, Charles.  And your friends.  So many beautiful men!_ She giggled through the videolink, her voice crackling with static. _I have seen on television and they are all beautiful, and very manly.  I’m excited!_

God help them.

 

**ROLLERDOME**

* * *

 

Pickles only had faint memories of rollerdomes, but – wandering away from the kiosk with a corndog and a slushy bigger than his head – it was reassuring to learn that they hadn’t changed much in thirty years.  Same greasy teenager serving fried shit at the kiosk counter.  Same pinball machines, presently being dominated by Murderface.  Same uncomfortable smell of children’s hands and rubber.  Same shitty rock hits on the PA.

The only thing that seemed to have changed was the clientele.  Pickles’ distant memories of musclebound disco dancers, echoes from his suburban childhood, had all but evaporated, just vanished into thin air.  Instead there was whatever this was; he leaned over the stands where Nathan and Skwisgaar had parked their lazy asses to watch the gaggle of women in the rink.

“Or, gosh.  Looks at her,”  Skwisgaar pointed to a slight woman skating smooth laps around the course.  Pickles checked her out briefly as he crammed the corndog into his mouth: a little too skinny for his tastes but her green dyed hair was fun.  Kinky.  You know.  “She, I guess she ams hot, if you, mm, you know, ams blind.”

Nathan just grunted, but Skwisgaar had picked another, this one a tall woman with long black and blonde streaked hair and broad freckled shoulders.  Pickles liked her tattoo sleeves.  “Or, oh!  Looks at that!  Is that even lady?”

“They’re… all lesbians,” mumbled Nathan, distant eyed, and Pickles stripped the sausage off the skewer as far down as he’d gotten with his teeth before swallowing.

“Yeah Skwisgaar, I gotta hunch they don’t care if you wanna fuck ‘em.”

“No, like…”  Nathan looked down at his hands.  “They’re _all_ lesbians.  I have this… friend… who does this… roller racing… thing.  Gay women’s roller, thing.”

“Friend?”  Pickles arched a pierced eyebrow suspiciously, and Nathan stared down at his boots.

“Okay, we used to date, are you happy?”  He grumbled to himself, clearly on the spot.  “She was from before the band and crap, my mom knows her mom so I get like, updates, it’s fucked.  That’s her with the, like… the facepaint…”  That didn’t really narrow it down.

“She was your girlfriends, but now she ams on the gay ladies’ roller team?” asked Skwisgaar, but Nathan just let out a long groan.

“Ha, that’s funny.  Mm, I joke.  Maybe you ams the, simplys too much for her.”

“Well, looks like Tokyo’s enjoyin’ herself anyway.” Which was the point.  Toki was sat on the benches in a pink jersey with black stripes under his eyes, strapping himself into skates and protective pads as the tall woman explained the game to him.  They’d been very friendly so far, taking an instant liking to their new sister, and even from in the stands Pickles could see the Norwegian’s focus drift to follow the athletic girls around the track, the curves of their bodies flexed tight with acrobatic spins and gallops in their skates.

Skwisgaar was squinting down at them with a quietly churning internal rage, and once Pickles had finished his corndog – washing it down with a huge slurp of the slushy and brushing the crumbs off the scarf, still floating around his neck – he nudged the Swede’s shoulder with his knuckles to get his attention.  “Hey, dude.  Relax, okay.  It’s only a coupla hours and we’re outta here.  Ya look like you’re gonna shoot yourself.”

“It’s not that.  I’m fine,” Skwisgaar snarled in reply.  “I am just… I ams not too fond of this, her.  Toki’s sister.  I don’t wants her to enjoy herself – ah.  This ams bringing out the worst in me!”  Glumly he leaned forward in the plastic stadium seat, his elbows on his knees and face resting in his upturned palms. 

“What is Toki doing?  Where does he go?  And not tellings us… pfft.  I think he doesn’t _want_ to be in the band.  Then he send his sister for us to be babysitting??  It make me… mad.  Just very angry, Pickle.”  Skwisgaar scrubbed his hands over his tired face, trying to ignore the drummer as he leaned in closer.  Now Pickles knew Toki’s secret – well, he wasn’t going to let it out, but damned if he wasn’t going to milk it for all it was worth.

“Ya don’t think she’s hot?” he prodded, and Skwisgaar didn’t answer, just glared.  Instead, Pickles turned to Nathan, giving him a playful shove.  “Whadda you think, big guy?  Toki’s sister: yeah or no?”

“Mmf.  Yeah.”  Nathan peered down the stands at Toki as the tall girl helped him up.  The two were on opposing teams by the look of their jerseys.  “I hate myself for it but, yeah, I totally would.  Hey, Skwisgaar, say something, make me feel better about what I just said.”

“Ugh, okay.”  Skwisgaar folded his arms, his disgusted gaze fixed on the Norwegian as she picked up speed on the course.  When he spoke, his words dripped with venom.  “I don’ts know, I guess, ja?  She does something weird to me.  When I sees her, I just want to fuck her stupid brains out, fuck her into hospitals.  Just, you know, like… choking her and give her, just… something very… brutals, she brings up into me.”

The other two were silent, staring at him.

“Uh, that’s… pretty intense, Skwisgaar,” observed Pickles eventually, and Skwisgaar squirmed uncomfortably.

“I know.  I don’ts… feels this way ever, normally.  I just…”  He sighed abruptly, “Keep my distance.  I think that’s what I will be doing.”

“Oo-kay.”  Pickles left it at that, peeling away from the other two to make his way down to the edge of the rink.  Toki had taken to the skates fast, laughing along with the girls as he looped with them.  Pickles had to admit he looked pretty good in the black booty shorts and skin-tight jersey, the facepaint making him look ready to kill or strike a home run, maybe.

“Hey, Tokyo!  Are ya havin fun?” he called out, and Toki passed him backwards with a chirped, “ _Ja!  Mye!_ ”  Impressive.  Just look at that tight ass.  Pickles assumed it’d changed as well because he’d never noticed it before, but somewhere deep down in the murky, toxic depths of his heart, he knew that wasn’t true.

The stands around them were starting to fill with spectators – not heaps, it wasn’t exactly a tournament game but rather a hastily called practice session.  Still the girls had their fans, most of them female as well.  Pickles was soon joined in the track-side seats by the rest of the band, Murderface juggling a huge armful of snacks and beers that they gladly helped themselves to.  With a shrill whistle from the ref, the game began.

Toki started as part of the jam, skating along with the other girls and following their steps as they tried to stop another girl, one from the green team, with a star on her helmet, from passing them.  He stuck by the rules for the most part and Pickles was about to get bored when he noticed the Norwegian joining hands with another girl in a more complex move to cut off the star girl.  Beside him Nathan bristled silently, tensing, and Pickles realised the other girl must have been his ex.  Pretty cute, short black hair, dark skin.  Apparently gender was no barrier for jealousy.

With a scream and a clatter of skates Pickles was jerked out of his roving eye to catch Toki spilling over the course face-first.  The other girls just jumped his prone form in a flash of thighs and skates, letting him scramble off the track and catch his breath as the band jeered and booed.  Murderface hucked his beer at the Norwegian as he cowered away from the skates, the bottle bouncing off the barrier and hitting the floor with a clunk.  “Get up, ya uschelessch cow!  You gotta whip thesche bitchesch!”

“Ja, for the honour of Toki Wartooth’s!” crowed Skwisgaar as he scrambled back onto his skates, the others not far behind.

“Yeah, do it for Toki!”

“Do it for your brother!”

The round ended and the girls reassembled, the tall woman taking Toki aside a moment with Nathan’s ex and another girl.  There was nodding, then a swap of places – now Nathan’s ex was on green and both wore stars, taking their position at the back of the jam even as the bruises blossomed on Toki’s shins.  Pickles leaned forward on the barrier, taken by the determination on Toki’s face.  Looked like he meant business this time around.  Pickles had been watching these star girls as they pushed through the blockers; the one before Toki had been conservative in her moves.

They took off with the ref’s whistle, Toki struggling to part the blockers’ manoeuvres at first.  Murderface threw another bottle just as he burst through, this one bouncing off Toki’s helmet and knocking him to reel sideways, just saving himself before he was disqualified for crossing the track boundaries with some fancy footwork.  “FUCK,” he swore, grabbing his helmet and glaring at the band before toppling again as the girls lapped him at full speed.

“Ahhh fuck you, you fuckin dyke!” yelled Murderface, and every eye in the place moved as one to glare at him as Toki stooped to fetch the thrown bottle.  “You schuck!  Get your fasche outta thesche cuntsch and fuckin skate!”

“Fuck you!”  Toki ditched the bottle back, the band scrambling as it smashed on the barrier in front of them and showered broken glass over their seats and the track below.  The jam had been called and reassembled with Toki behind again, white-faced with rage.

The whistle blew.

The girls on the green team were just moving to block Toki again, joining arms in front of him and locking him in with their skates, when a sharp elbow punched into one of their ribcages to a squeal, Toki bursting shoulder-first through their barrier and surging forward.  The other star girl was far ahead of him, but Toki quickly gained; cheers from the Dethklok camp as Toki passed, but Pickles thought he saw the other girl’s slender fingers graze the whip of Toki’s ponytail.  Funny girl, huh.

The Norwegian zipped around the corner, putting out a hand to high-five them as he passed, catching Nathan’s huge palm with a triumphant slap as he dodged glass.  The pack was already assembling before him, bracing themselves, but Toki ploughed through them like skittles.  He was about to lap Nathan’s ex – wrestling with two blockers from his team – a second time when she snatched out again, catching his ponytail in a quick fist and yanking him off his footing.  Toki lunged for one of the blockers to catch himself, and the whole pile came skidding down in front of the band in an awful, yowling mess of blood and glass.

“What the fuck…”  Nathan was the first to crane over the barrier, the glass crunching under his hands as he leaned closer to the catfight going on below.  Toki was on his back, holding off the other star girl as she slashed at the air with her nails – as the other girls arrived on the scene and clocked what had happened, they got involved too, piling onto one girl or the other with screams of “You bitch!” and “Fucking cunt!”.  Toki managed to get one skate-clad foot up to thrust into an attacking girl’s stomach, but as soon as he showed any chance of getting up, another dragged him down into the shards claws out.

“Hey Froyo!  Usche thisch!” Murderface, a white knight to the end, dropped his last bottle into the fray, Toki’s black manicured fist rising from the blood and dyed hair to catch it in a victorious grasp.  With a satisfying _donk_ as a girl was clubbed out of the way, the Norwegian emerged from the flailing, bloody limbs just in time to see the original culprit, Nathan’s ex, escape ahead of him.  He set off in unsteady pursuit, bottle in hand.

“Woo, yeah!  Glass that bitch, baby!” hooted Pickles, only to be dragged back by Nathan, protective of his old hometown fling.

“Don’t, fucking ‑ ‑ ‑” he snarled, but Pickles was looking forward to this one far too much.  With each girl Toki violently toppled he’d felt his heart skip and a healthy glow redden his cheeks.  There was just something so hot about a catfight.  Threesomes were okay, but secretly he missed the days of seeing groupies go to town on one another over him, all glitter fake nails and ripped out hoop earrings.  The blood on the track was bringing back some pleasant memories.

"Pickles.  Pickles."  He came to to Nathan shoving him aside abruptly, a concerned frown on the frontman's broad features.  "Really?  They're fucking gay, man."

"Huh?"  Pickles glanced up at him, then felt his hard dick numb through his jeans buffet the barrier as he leaned forward against it.  "Oh.  Sorry, dude.  I'll - - -"

"Just - it's just - I don't care but, man, she's my _ex_ , and - and they're both - - -"

"It's okay, dude.  I'll just go."  Pickles still had a respectful bone in his body.  One could say that was the problem.  He kept his eye on the track as he slunk away, though, seeing Toki gain on the other girl.

With a wide swing and a scream, Toki smashed the bottle over the other girl’s helmet, both of them falling in a final pile at the feet of the ref, blowing frantically on his whistle and pointing at the two girls.  End of jam.  Nathan’s ex struggled up onto her shoulders, grinning around her swollen lip and black eye at Toki as he lay on the floor, gasping desperately for breath. 

“Sick jam babe!  That was fucking radical!” she squealed, and Toki squeezed a dreamy smile across his beaten features as he gazed up at her.

“ _Takke_ …” he squeaked, the tall woman skating past them again.

“That was great Freyja, you did really well for your first try!  Now go get cleaned up while we clear the floor for the next round!”

Toki closed his eyes, sprawled on the floor and bleeding.  Gosh, it felt nice to be good at something, even if he wasn’t sure what he’d done right.  It just felt so nice to be appreciated.  Takke, takke.  Wowee…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> Nathan - oblivious, jealous  
> Pickles - knows, but still hard  
> Skwisgaar - oblivious, violent fantasies  
> Murderface - oblivious, egging on  
> Toki - has glass embedded in his boobs, but could totally get used to that


	9. SÆD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> filth!

**ROLLERDOME**

* * *

 

By the second game, Pickles had taken to sitting on the curb in the carpark, just waiting and smoking and trying not very hard to keep his mind off girls ripping each other apart.  He flicked his ash over the asphalt and reminisced on these two girls, they were probably called Candy and, uh, say Hayley.  Sure.  Fucked if he could remember.  But Candy was definitely blonde. 

They’d been friends _forever_ , yeah he remembered this, and they’d wanted to share his time after the gig, but when Candy found out he’d run into Hayley outside the tour truck before their planned rendezvous, like, you know, “run into”, you know.  With his dick.  And he had just been sitting on the stairs of the tour bus smoking a joint when Candy had stormed over in those leather thigh high stilettos and just fucking smashed Hayley around the head with her studded purse.

And in the end he’d gotten to fuck both of them so.  So what?  It had been fun to watch anyway, was his point, was sometimes fun to get a bit rough and tumble with the girls.  Idly he rubbed his bruised neck under the scarf, now mending with big gauze patches taped over the open wounds, and found his mind’s eye wandering, flashing with fierce blues and tense muscles under a heaving bosom.

Pickles put out his blunt on the pavement and slapped his knee definitively.  That was about enough of that.  Did this place have a shower room because, yeah, fantasising about fucking Toki was where he drew the hard, hard line.  Still quite hard.  His good lord and saviour whiskey dick, preventer of so many awful potential conclusions, had come to his rescue the other night and now was taxing him for its timely interference.  Fucking where were the others, anyway?  Nope, that was it; he was giving up waiting, got himself up off his lazy ass and to the bathrooms.

The game had ended a while ago, a lone janitor still mopping the blood off the track far below.  Dethklok’s activity had devolved into playing the arcade machines and getting pissed, and Pickles snuck by unnoticed to the men’s room.  He was surprised to find it quite clean and practically empty until he remembered the crowd previously.  There’d barely been more than their four dicks in the place.  Of course it was empty.

Well, practically empty.  As Pickles stepped light-sneakered through the bathroom, he could hear a faint scuffling from a closed cubicle, a husky giggle, a gasp, the unmistakable sound of a tongue being stuck down someone else’s throat.  Creeping deeper, he noticed that while one of the cubicle doors appeared to be closed – and bearing two sets of abandoned skates on its floor, two pairs of sock-clad feet - it was actually open just a crack, the lock evidently broken.

Pickles may have been nosey to the death but he wasn’t stupid.  The urinals were barely four feet from the cubicles, and he positioned himself in front of one so he’d appear to be using it before he reached back and gave the door a shove.  He was duly rewarded with a shriek and a scramble for decency even as he groped his hard dick uselessly through his jeans, pretending to put it away as he glanced over his shoulder.  “Oh, sorry.  Didn’t see you there - - -”

He didn’t get much further, because there was totally Toki with Nathan’s ex straddling his lap, his hands up her top, glaring daggers through him as the door drifted shut again.

More scuffling and whingey complaints before the girl pushed past Pickles, straightening her top and apologising as she darted out of the bathroom.  Slowly, Pickles turned to push open the cubicle door and face Toki’s homicidal glare.

“Well, uh.  Nathan’s gonna want your fuckin head, Toki,” he purred, leaning on the door jamb, but Toki just scowled, curling his hands around the toilet seat he sat on as though holding himself back.

“I’m gonna fucking kills you Pickle!” came the petulant whine, and Pickles only just dodged the roll of toilet paper ditched violently at his head.

“Woah, fuck!”  Toki launched himself at the drummer but Pickles’ reflexes served him well, side-stepping just in time for the Norwegian to barrel straight into the steel urinals on the opposite wall.  He wasn’t so lucky a third time – Toki pulled himself up from the blow and the piss scum and shot out a hand to hook the front of Pickles’ shirt, dragging him up before slamming him back on a mirror.

It was only in the clutches of Toki or Ofdensen that Pickles ever remembered how unfit he really was.  How useless putting up a fight would be.  Instead he slumped against the mirror, turning helpless pleading eyes up at his assailant as he struggled to hold the Norwegian’s hands away from his throat.  “Shit, that hurt, Toki!  What the fuck’s your problem?”

Toki twisted his hands out of Pickles’ grip, grabbing his wrists and pinning him to the mirror in one deft turn.

“Fuck, you!” he spat in Pickles’ face, and – held splayed like that – Pickles was suddenly very, very aware of his persistent erection.  There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to cover it like this, just fucking pray Toki didn’t notice.  Or, like, kill him first.  Maybe that was preferable.  Was this how he wanted to go?  His head popped like a watermelon between derby girl Toki’s thighs in a public bathroom with a fucking Eiffel Tower in his jeans and stomach full of corndog?

Eh, well, there were worse ways to go.  That time he’d almost overdosed face down on Antonio’s crotch for one.  Like, dressed of course, and Tony was also overdosing, but… it was compromising.  And just not very cool.  At least Toki would make sure there was fucking blood.  Never fuck with a guy named Wartooth.

But having immobilised Pickles and killed the fight in him, Toki only trembled.  He wasn’t so much angry as frustrated, and seeing Pickles’ helpless, puppy-eyed face looking up at him turned him gooey with sympathy.  This close to him, he could see the patches on Pickles’ neck – and that was the final straw.  With an irate snort, he dropped the drummer’s hands and gave him a parting slap around the ear before turning away - Pickles swore and clutched the top of his jaw as the cupped blow sent a bolt of pain ringing through his head.  Toki had picked that one up from his parents for fucking sure.  Nerve-pinching, perfect cruelty.

When his vision cleared, Pickles looked up to see Toki hunched over one of the sinks, hands braced white on its edge.  “Fuck, Toki.  What fuckin dildo’s crawled up your butthole?” he snapped, rubbing his ear, but he didn’t catch Toki’s reply, the words hissed out and dropping straight into the basin.

“Huh?”  Warily Pickles moved closer so he could hear.  He could see Toki’s face in the mirror over the basin, ashen and grave.  What was he saying?  Sounded like…

“ _I’s so fucking horny I think I ams gonna fucking dies of this…_ ”

“Whuh?”  Pickles’ brow creased with the effort of understanding, nay, empathising, with the suffering of another human being.  “You… whuh?”

His blood went still in his veins as Toki looked over his shoulder at him, a stare of glacial rage bolting through the mascara and bruises.  “Why’d you haveta bursts in here Pickle, you scare my friend!”

“Ya can’t have lesbian sex with Nathan’s ex-girlfriend, Toki.  He’ll fuckin murder you.”  Pickles cocked his head to the side, amicable though his guard was still up high.  “Man, you’re really enjoyin messin with him lately, aren’t you?”

“No I’m not!  She’s just – she’s my friend!” wheezed Toki, exasperated.  He’d gone that grey colour like cigarette ash, moist about the forehead, that he blanched to when he was about to have an attack and pass out.  Now Pickles wasn’t made of noodles but he didn’t like his chances of dragging Toki out of here on his own, nor his chances of getting away blameless if the others caught him pulling an unconscious woman from the bathrooms. Hesitantly, he put out a gentle hand to fall on the Norwegian’s shoulder.

“Toki.  It’s okay.  I’m playin with you.  Sorry I freaked her out, geeze.”  Toki stared at him for a second, and meeting his gaze, Pickles noticed how dark the skin around his eyes was.  More sleepless nights.  But the spell broke suddenly, as it so often did with Toki, and Pickles could only reel as his friend plastered himself against him in a firm hug, head buried in his shoulder.  Cringing under Toki’s weight, he cautiously folded his arms around the Norwegian, holding him close while angling his pelvis away from his friend’s body.  Pickles could feel Toki’s small breasts pressed against his chest; the poor guy didn’t need to know the effect that was having on him.

That is.  The flesh was fucking willing but the mind was a little weirded out, honestly.  There was whispering, happening.  In his ear.

“I’s sorry Pickle for being such a douchbags, I don’ts mean to hurts you!”  Jesus, this was fucked.  The hug had gone past the acceptable time span and well into the gay territory, but Pickles wasn’t keen on getting clocked around the ear again.  Instead he awkwardly patted Toki’s back.

“That’s… okay, Toki.  That’s okay.  This is… kinda gay, Toki,” he mumbled back, but there was no prying Toki off him now.  The Norwegian kept him in his embrace but drew back slightly, face to face with his old friend and melting into the long hug.

“It’s just this all so stressful, phew!  And nightmares and Charlie say I can’t have any lady visit and Skwisgaar keep texts angry to me and it’s hard to keeps a big secret!  But you ams good friend to me Pickle, I ams really thank yous I ‑ ‑ ‑”  Their eyes met as Toki’s thigh brushed Pickles’ erection, Toki’s affectionate smile dropping into uncertainty while Pickles silently wished himself dead.  “I - - - Pickle?”

“Please, uh, ignore that Toki.  It’s just a… a physiological thing, you know.  Your tits are like, right in my face, dude.”  Toki pulled abruptly back, frowning down at the drummer in his arms.  Pickles had long dropped his own embrace but Toki wasn’t that easy to shake.  He cringed as the Norwegian pulled back his scarf, revealing the stained bandage patches on his neck.

“You real fucked up, Pickle.  Who does this hurts to you?” Toki whined, and Pickles realised it was an attempt to change the subject.  The fucking useless moron.  Pickles stared up at him, a pained expression on his face.

“Uh, that would be you, Toki.  You did that.”

“Oh, nos!”  Toki grabbed his face, shaking him with aggressive sympathy.  The whole thing was deeply unnerving to Pickles, but Toki’s cleavage was right there.  Just right fucking there!  “My friend Pickle, I hurts you!  This ams so terrible thing!  I only wants to get off and I hurts you!  This tears me apart!”

But not before it tore Pickles apart first, apparently. 

“You keep sayin that,” he remarked, squinting at Toki.  “Sounds like it’s goin to your head dude.  Can’t you just jack off?”

“ _It doesn’t work!_ I think it's the curse, I think it...  _extras_ it, usually, it does not bothers me…?”

“Doesn’t… huh?  Can’t you just, you know, scratch the record…”  Toki was clutching his shoulders tightly, desperation pale on his face as Pickles lamely mimed fingering then dropped it with a sigh.  “Well, uh, I dunno then, get a dildo or something?”

He watched on in excruciating awkwardness as Toki’s watery gaze wandered down his body again, his firm hands tensing on Pickles’ shoulder.  “No, Toki,” he warned, shaking his head, but Toki just bit down on his bottom lip, another pained glance shooting to Pickles’ crotch.

“Can’ts you just - - -??” he whined, but Pickles kept shaking his head.

“No, nope, that’s a big no from me - - -”

“Pickle come on, please?  You’ms already turn on right, so, hmm, we ams help each others out, you know, just pal around for a bit?  Come on.  You loves to mess around, ha ha?”  He give Pickles a playful shove, backing him towards the mirror again.  Pickles raised his hands defensively.

“I – fuckin, no, Toki.  I don’t even know what we did, dude, I’m not - it’s weird, and… just really fuckin gay,” he said, stepping backwards slowly. 

“Come on! It ams unfair, Pickle, I didn’ts even - - -”

“Unfair? Fuck!”  Pickles jumped as his shoulderblades touched the mirror, cornered.  “What the hell makes you think I got anything outta this whole fuckup except the world’s worst, dumbest fuckin boner?  For fuck's sake!”

“I makes it up to you,” offered Toki, and reached for the hem of his top.

Pickles had just enough time to yap out, “How?” before Toki stripped his top off, dressed down to sports bra and glass scratches now.  “Toki, don’t - fuckin hell, you really are a slut,” the drummer groaned as Toki pulled the bra over his head, and Pickles crumpled against the mirror.

“You likes these, yeah?  So… that ams fair, right?”  Toki dropped the bra and grabbed his breasts, squeezing them roughly then wincing – they were more sensitive than he noticed sometimes.  Pickles had covered his eyes with one hand.

“No, fuck, that’s not fair!  This is fuckin psycho!” he whined, and when he peeked again Toki was standing even closer.  He was not high enough for this, god damn it.

“Then I gets you booze?  Drug?  Cokes?  Or – or…”  Toki was clearly racking his brains for anything to tempt his friend with.  “My skate?  Nice guitar?  Come on, be a good pal, it’s just for funs?  Um, ladies?   Cinnamons bun? - - -”

“Toki, okay, ya can’t just bribe me with shit; I’m not a god damn call girl,” Pickles growled, squaring up to the topless Norwegian.  “The only way you could balance this out is if _you_ went down on _me_ , and that ain’t barely gonna happen - - -”

But his resolve dropped as he noticed the expression change on Toki’s face, from pleading to a small victory.  Pickles felt, well, suddenly on uneven footing – but then even Toki wasn’t really gay.  There was a difference between being touched up drunk and putting another dude’s dick in your mouth.†  Pickles was like eighty-seven percent sure Toki wouldn’t do it for real.  He didn’t have the fucking balls to suck dick.

Nonetheless, “Okay, sure?” said Toki.

“Bullshit you will,” said Pickles, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yeah I will.  I am.  And – it’s gonna be the most cools fucking blow job you ever get, you dildos,” threatened Toki, matching his stare.

"Okay, well, I'm ready.  Be - be my guest, man," said Pickles.

Toki dropped to his knees.  And so began the weirdest game of gay chicken Pickles had ever been involved in.

He thought about stopping it, but – as the Norwegian fumbled with Pickles’ straining fly, his tongue poking out the side of his mouth with the effort – he was suddenly ravenously curious to see if Toki would actually go through with it.  Pickles had been on the receiving end of this game before and knew a real, in the flesh stiff cock was a hard truth to swallow.  Eighty-seven percent sure.

And on the other hand… that was still a thirteen percent chance of getting blown.

Leaning back on the mirror and watching Toki’s dumb face contort as he finally got the fly unzipped, Pickles wondered if he’d even be any good at it if he tried.  One had to be thankful that anyone wanted to put their mouth on one’s junk, regardless of their talent, but it was interesting _knowing_ that it was someone’s first attempt.  Some virgins were really gifted, you know.  And it wasn’t as if he could _tell_ anyone, not unless he also admitted his own essential fagginess.  It was a safe, free, consensual, convenient skullfuck.  Who was Pickles to turn up his nose at that?

Moment of truth: Toki got the fly open and tugged Pickles’ jeans down, only to have his hard cock flop out in his face.  The grimace of disgust that pulled over his face just made Pickles’ placid smirk grow wider.  Of course Toki had seen it before in the phone photo, but in the flesh was something else to deal with.  And then there was that rancid, dick sweat smell to contend with.  The look on his face was an eighty-seven percenter for sure, rapidly rocketing to a hundred.  Pickles placed his hands gently on Toki’s head in reassurance and tilted his head back in defeat, shutting his eyes.

“See?  I know when you’re talkin shit, Toki,” he purred, satisfied that he’d won and now got out of gay free, do not pass go, do not collect $200, but the words crawled straight back down his throat as a soft, deep, damp heat enveloped the first few inches of his dick.  Holy fucking shit. 

He actually did it.

Toki was, actually, for real, sucking his dick.

Pickles had to look down again just to check it was real and not some kind of trick, but yeah, there it was, a terrible truth and a very average blow job sinking its lips further down his shaft, his fingers still caught up in Toki’s long dark hair.  Toki’s head was bent in intense concentration and Pickles could feel his tongue tensed hard against his dick as he bobbed, imitating the girls he’d had with clumsy, amateur strokes, the graze of his teeth more the regular than the exception. 

Seeing him so absorbed made Pickles suddenly crave to see his blues dart up to him, get a good look at what he was really doing.  There was something deeply satisfying about corrupting Toki’s relative innocence, leading him wilfully into the jaws of those dark, guilty pleasures he wouldn’t dare out around the others.  The potential for blackmail crossed his mind and bolted excitedly from the base of his dick; his fingers clutched at Toki’s hair as he pulled him deeper to a muffled choke.  But the Norwegian, dead set on giving the coolest blow job ever, just swallowed and gagged onwards undaunted.

It was generally a bit of a chore to get Pickles to cum, but he’d been titillated all day and now he could feel it coiling in his loins as Toki – his jaw seizing, the fear of disappointing working a worm of stress to his core as he clutched the back of Pickles’ knees and choked again – really went to town on him.  Was he trying to, like, actually suck down there?  Points for effort at least.  Pickles was going to point this out when the Norwegian’s firm tongue rubbed soft against a sweet spot, straightening him against the mirror with a sharp breath in.  Aw, oh, shit.  He couldn’t cum in Toki’s mouth, the poor little dumbass.  Aw, holy shit, no.

“Toki,” Pickles gasped, pulling gently on Toki’s hair.  “Toki.  Toki Toki Toki, dude, nah, that’s – that’s enough, Toki, dude…”  But this only caused Toki to look up at him, blue eyed and angelic with a mouthful of dick, and Pickles barely managed to shove him hard away before he shot with a vicious cringe that shut his eyes tight.  He folded against the mirror, still twitching, as he caught his breath.  Holy shit.  Way too close for comfort.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to a sound that could roughly be described as “Auuergh??” coming from his friend’s tired mouth.  Toki was still kneeling in front of him with a familiar, slack-jawed expression of obliteration on his face.  The poor little guy was fixed in terror with three stripes of hot cum dripping over his jaw, collarbone and breast.

“Aw, fuck.  Sorry, dude,” Pickles mumbled, abashed, but it was too late: Toki had frozen and paled again, a bleached concrete grey.  Pickles watched on in horror as he suddenly sighed, dropped, and passed out cold on the floor at his feet with a smack of tiles on bare skin.

“Oh, fuck.”  The drummer dug desperately at his fly, tucking away his wasted dick before attempting to help.  Priorities, man.  It turned out to be the right choice, too – call it luck of the Irish, because right at that moment, with a belch and a “Picklesch, you in here?  We haveta go - - -”, Murderface chose to walk in on them.

Pickles, standing against the mirror, glazed with sweat and fiddling with his fly with an unconscious, topless, cum-streaked, beaten lesbian at his feet, met Murderface’s horrified gaze with a deranged panic.  “This?  Is not what it looks like.  I _swear_.”

* * *

 

† Pickles would know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> running score:  
> nathan - oblivious, whooping ass at wheelchair bandit arcade version  
> pickles - knows, and has joined the prestigious Traumatised Toki Club  
> skwisgaar - oblivious, attempting to chat up lesbians  
> murderface - oblivious, has seen enough  
> toki - unconscious, has seen too much!


	10. FOREDRAG

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lots of talking. pickles ain't GAY GOD DAMN IT CHARLIE

**ROLLERDOME**

* * *

 

“Here he ish.  Do with him what you will.” 

Pickles felt his stomach lurch as Murderface shoved him towards another set of hulking Klokateers, the plastic cable ties that bound his hands behind his back, supplied by the initial emergency hoods, cutting into his wrists as they seized him roughly by the shoulders.

“Ow!  Fuck!”  His protests fell on deaf ears as they escorted him out of the building, his head throbbing out through a black eye, a token of Murderface’s fist landing square in his face.  As if he could have known ‘tainting her honour’ or whatever the fuck that had been about would set the guy off so badly.  Murderface was the archetypal hypocrite, hissed and spat about how women were godless serpents but then fucking blacked his buddy’s eye for even appearing to hurt one.  And had he heard something about ‘messing with my girl’?  The whole situation was just screwed up.

But what was really unsettling was the way the others had rallied behind the bassist so easily, Pickles booted into submission and held down in the cafeteria while hoods rushed Toki’s limp body past them.  It hurt, you know, to hear his oldest friends admonishing him about nothing they wouldn’t do, to hear Nathan growl, “Man, I’m just, really disappointed in you.  You’re not even drunk.”

“Oh, cuz that would have fuckin changed it would it,” he’d groaned into the filthy linoleum, only to have Skwisgaar poke his bruised face with his boot.

“Shuts your mouth, you's… _sickos_.”

So just imagine his relief when around the corner of the building, bullied by the rough hands of the brute muscle hoods at his side, he saw the Dethlimo idling, the door opening to accept him in a womblike embrace as, out of sight of the others, he was handed gently over, allowed to step inside a respected man again.

The door shut abruptly behind him and before his eyes even had time to adjust to the light, the vehicle pulled out, lurching and throwing him off his feet only to be caught by strong hands, immediately grabbing his wrists.  “Now, just hold still a moment,” came the calm, measured voice of Charles Foster Offdensen and Pickles could have puked from relief.

“Oh man, am I glad to see you!” he choked out as the cable tie tightened and then snapped, and the drummer was released to collapse into one of the luxurious chairs of the limo, only just catching the flash of a blade in the manager’s hand as he quickly stowed it away again.  “You can be really frightening, did you know that?”

“I’m just doing what I have to, Pickles.  Nothing to be afraid of.”  Offdensen stooped in front of him, employed this time in a different role – his jacket and tie abandoned and sleeves rolled impeccably to his elbows, he inspected Pickles’ wounds in a hurried manner, eventually handing him an ice pack for his swollen eye.

“Could you just hold that – thanks.”  Pickles held the pack to his face glumly as Offdensen removed his scarf, hissing under his breath at what he saw. “They, uh, didn’t go easy on you, did they?”

“No.  No, they did not.”  He winced as the manager peeled off his soiled neck patches with medical forceps.  “Don’t listen to what they tell you, okay?  I swear I didn’t do nothin to Toki.  Nothin he didn’t start, anyway…”

“Oh I – I know, we’ve – already spoken.”  Offdensen pulled back from his swabbing clean his neck and glanced over his own shoulder at the seating further in the limo, and Pickles slowly became aware that the pile of blankets lying over the seats actually had a swathe of brown hair attached and a pale foot poking out from beneath.  “He’s okay – just had a little sedative to calm him down, hopefully get some sleep.  He was in a bit of shock - - -”

“Yeah, well, what did he expect to come out, fuckin glitter?  Confetti?” sneered Pickles, but Offdensen ignored him.

“ - - - but he should recover quickly.  I’ll speak to the others when we get back to Mordhaus; it’ll all be forgotten, soon enough.”  He met Offdensen’s cool gaze and suddenly realised that, most likely, it had been him who had wiped Pickles’ semen off of Toki, and instantly fell back in line, shrinking in his seat and letting the manager fix new plasters to his neck.  Whatever they paid the guy, it wasn’t enough, but Pickles wasn’t about to bring it up.

He watched as Offdensen moved over to Toki, pulling the blankets down from his face and checking his pulse at his throat.  There was something sinister about the scene, something about the way Offdensen moved with caution, the personal care he was providing – something wasn’t right. 

“Charlie…” he hazarded, settling back in his chair half-blinded with the ice pack held over his throbbing eye, “While we’ve got a moment alone, uhh, ya know, could you… could you maybe tell me what’s, uh, actually goin on with Toki, cuz it’s really… pretty freaky?  I mean I know I didn’t ask but uh… what I saw back there, I mean, the way he acted – it’s startin to give me the heebie-jeebies.  If you know what I mean?”

Offdensen glanced up at him, subtly raising a stiff eyebrow.  “I can’t help but note that these so-called ‘heebie-jeebies’ didn’t stop you taking advantage of the situation,” he remarked dryly, and Pickles shrunk back in his seat.

“Uh, whatever, fuck off.  I’m just a, y'know, red-blooded American dude.  I can’t help myself!” he whinged.  Fuck, Offdensen was terrifying when he was mad.

“You and I both know that’s a lie, Pickles.  I know it might be hard to ignore your sense of entitlement, but Toki is still Toki.  My former warning still stands.”  The manager moved back, sitting beside Toki’s head as he kept watch over the Norwegian’s sleeping figure.  “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

“And you do,” prodded Pickles, still curious.  He saw Offdensen twitch in response, caught out.

“You could say that.”

“What aren’t you tellin us?”  He moved the ice pack to squint at the manager through his swollen eye, but Offdensen couldn’t meet his gaze.

“I tell you everything you need to know.”

“Well obviously I’m not gettin the message, am I, Charlie?” Pickles mocked, replacing the ice pack with a stubborn cock of his head.  “What happened to Toki back there?  It was at those hot springs, right?”

Offdensen was quiet for a moment more, pulling the blankets up Toki’s body to cover his neck again and gazing down, disconnected, before he spoke in a sombre, measured tone.  “If I’m honest with you, Pickles – I don’t know.  That would appear to be the case, yes.  I’ve been in contact with a Nordic magic expert in Iceland, a völva - - - ”

“Heh,” said Pickles, but the manager ignored him.

“ - - - that is, a practitioner of an, uh, ancient form of shamanistic sorcery known as seiðr.  It’s definitely a curse, she says to teach some sort of lesson.  It’s not clear what that is exactly, but, uh, I might have a hunch.”

“What kind of lesson does gettin a pussy teach you?” protested Pickles, curling his lip.  “How to choke on dick?  Sounds like a pretty fucked up curse!”

“Yes, well… the concern is it’s not - - - ”

“If it’s how to find the clit he hasn’t learned it yet,” he interrupted, and Offdensen stared through him with a dry anger.

“The _concern_ is that it’s not just Toki who’s cursed.  We don’t know what’s involved with this; magic isn’t something you can predict.”  Offdensen was raising his voice now, a bad sign for anyone.  “Maybe nothing’s happened yet but it could, at any moment.  It might even be transmittable, _hence_ my warning, Pickles.  I can just about deal with Toki like this, but god help us if it gets any more of you.  In other words, _please_ do _not_ have sex with Toki again, at least until this is over.”

Pickles’ mouth dropped open slightly with shock.

“What… the fuck,” he breathed, and Offdensen just frowned at him.

“Well, I’d really _prefer_ you didn’t sleep with him at all, you know.  There’s more going on here than you can even fathom, Pickles.  It’s dangerous to get near Toki at all, let alone - - -”

“Did you just call me gay?”

Offdensen blinked.  “That… no.  If anything, and that’s a big if, I implied you were, uh, bisexual - - -”

“You did!  You totally did!   Holy shit.  Just – holy shit.  What – what the fuck, Charlie?  I am _not_ gay. I wouldn't go near him if he wasn't a god damn chick right now!”

“Pickles, please sit down.”  Offdensen looked up at the drummer as he seethed and spat, rising from his seat.  “With respect, he's obviously still Toki, he looks like Toki, he still thinks of himself as Toki - - -”

“So what? I’m not gay!  I’ve fuckin had enough of this, motherfuckin, rude!  Lemme outta here - - -”

“Pickles!”  Pickles had barely gotten the limo door open to the highway speeding past, his dreads whipping in the wind, when Offdensen grabbed him by the back of his shirt, dragging him back into the vehicle, the door slamming shut on them again.  “You _cannot_ leave the car while it’s moving.  That will cause you to die.  I’m sorry that I caused you offence, that wasn’t my intention.  I was merely observing that you two have been having, uh, intercourse, and that it’s not my business if you wish to continue that after he’s returned to normal, but - - -“

Pickles dropped back into his seat with a thump and rolled his eyes hard.  “Psht, ‘intercourse’??  He sucked my dick, Charlie.  That’s not sex.  Everyone does that!”

“Okay, whatever.”  Offdensen slunk back to his seat, keeping a watchful eye on the vitriolic drummer.  “I’m sorry.  You are what you say you are, Pickles.  I believe you.”

“Okay.”

“Please put your ice pack back on.  And don’t do anything with Toki involving either of your genitals again until this is over, okay?  That’s all I’m asking.”

Pickles placed the ice pack on his face again.  “Okay.”

“Thank you.  It shouldn’t be long.  We’ve just got this gala on the weekend and then we’re taking Toki to Iceland to meet with this woman and, hopefully, lift the curse.  I might have you come along, if it’s all the same to you.  Since you already know and everything.  We could use an extra pair of hands.”  At least there would be women at the gala.  Pickles did not like the idea of going back to Iceland to meet some fucking witch, but from the look Offdensen was giving him he guessed he had no choice in the matter.  In their manager’s eyes, this was somehow his fault, his responsibility, for disobeying his orders.  Fucking hell.  Who was supposed to be the boss around here again?

And then there was Offdensen, sitting pretty, watching over Toki like a crow on a carcass.  It was sick, really.

“I’m sending you and Murderface to the gala tomorrow night with Skwisgaar and Toki.  Everything’s already arranged, your suits are pressed, Toki has a modest but, uh, flattering dress.  Just go, have a nice time, and keep an eye on Toki.  I can’t get away with keeping him at home, he’ll never forgive me, but as you’ve observed, he seems, uh, driven by his primal urges.  Whether that’s the curse or something else is another question, but there will be strangers there who might try to take advantage of him and of Dethklok.  All I’m asking is that you intervene before it gets to that point.  Do you understand?”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Pickles glumly, resigning to his fate as a pawn in this scenario.  He didn’t like it for a moment.

“All right.  I’m glad we had this talk, Pickles.  Can I interest you in a champagne?  Chilled, of course.”

And in the end, he only had to remain alone for the flight home - on return to Mordhaus he was greeted by the friendly, ignorant smiles of the others.  Sure, he knew Charlie had one hell of a gift, but he'd rarely seen it applied quite so powerfully.  Something nasty was up for sure.  Pickles had the feeling he was not getting the full story, and kept a sharp eye on Toki's door down the hall as they settled in for the night, thus far undisturbed.


	11. DRØM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> c-c-c-c-cocaine

**SUNSET STRIP, 1992**

* * *

 

He was standing in the bathroom out the back of a club on Sunset Strip, his blue Levis splitting tight across the back of his thighs as he leaned over to snort the long, thick line of cocaine off the hand towel dispenser.  The shows were good, exhilarating, and tonight had been no exception, but the afterparties were the only thing Pickles lived for any more.  Party after party after party, after afterparty, passing out across the USA.

There was a bang as someone slammed open the door behind him, making him jerk up and spray coke and mucus across the stainless steel as the drip squeezed excruciatingly slow down the back of his throat.  In the mirror, the leery, haunted face of his bandmate Antonio, strung out on horse, stared back at him.

“Tony,” Pickles snivelled, squinting over his shoulder at the bassist as he pawed at his numbing nose.  “Fuck, you did me a real spook there, dude.  Nearly sneezed off half my blow!”

“Pickles.”  There was some bad medicine going on with Tony, in the way he was staring, just standing there like a scarecrow as the door shut behind him.  The shitty rip-off band that followed them was tore through their solos, violent and crappy, muffled through the grubby tiling.

“Tony?”  Pickles’ cheeky grin peeled away as Tony continued to stare though him with the intensity of paint stripper.  Frowning sharply, the singer repeated in a snap: “Antonio.”

“Pickles, I…”  Pickles only realised it then as he turned to face him, the way that Tony was standing wide-stanced, blocking him from the exit – the poor fucker was trying to confront him.  About _what?_   What the fuck was wrong now?  Pickles had never done shit except take Tony’s goddamn ass off the streets into the spotlight and what fucking thanks did he get?  These fuckers were always trying to drag him down, man…

“Spit it out, dickweed.”  Pickles put his hands on his hips, rolled up hundred dollar bill held tight between his fingers, and stared him down.

In the face of Pickles’ pinpoint fierce gaze, Tony crumbled.  The moment his face slipped, big eyes watering, Pickles already knew there was no avoiding the blubbering.  Usually he was just as high and could lie there and take it, let him gush, but he was uncomfortably lucid right now.

“Snazz says – he says you’re gonna quit the band!” Tony blurted, lip trembling like meat jelly, and Pickles dropped his arm to his side with a tired sigh.  But the bassist went on, the desperation dripping out of his wide mouth with quavering words.  “Don’t – don’t fuckin look at me like that, bro!  This isn’t a joke!  You wanna kill the band??  That means, like, you wanna kill _us,_ man!”

“Ehh… it’s not – it’s not like that,” Pickles tried, but Tony was definitely going to cry.  “Shit.  Tony.  Tony, dude, look, maybe I said some shit while I was high but I’m not gonna kill the band!  I was just… fucked up, dude.  It means nothin.  Snakes are on top, Tony.  We’re gonna stay on top.”

He gave Tony thumbs up and a fake grin, knowing in his heart of hearts there wasn’t much more of this he could take.  It was too airy, too fluffy; he needed heavier shit and Tony was just too light fingered, Sammy choking his skins too tight on the kit.  Sometimes when they played, he felt like he was slipping into a coma, just drifting away.  Snakes ‘N’ Barrels’ days were numbered.

Still, saying he was _killing_ them was a little dramatic, hey.

Tony’s anguished frown quaked and curved up into a hopeless smile.  Maybe he knew it too.  He took a shaking step towards Pickles, putting his hands out to fall on the singer’s slight shoulders.  “Fuck, I’m glad, I dunno what I’d do, I - - -” and his eyes watered, “I love you, bro.”

Pickles barely managed, “Oh,” before Tony dragged him close and laid a sloppy, heroin slow kiss on him, the hundred dollar bill slipping from his fingers and flitting onto the bathroom tiles.

So it was with Tony’s tongue down his throat like a lump of dead liver that things started to get weird.  His head swam with the atonal shredding coming from the club outside, slowed and crumpled as if it was poured into his ears like honey, and Tony’s hands grazed across his body, pushed him against the hand towel dispenser.  Pickles found himself kissing back, a searing coke heat racing through his body as Tony shoved his hands down the front of his ripped Levis and rutted his hard on, stiff through his jeans, against Pickles’ spreading thighs.

He couldn’t help the short gasp that snuck out of him as Tony shoved his rough fingers into his pussy, thrusting them brutally into him, and then the world shifted, colours stretched and blurring as the bassist spun him around, yanking down his jeans to the knees and bending him over the stainless steel handtowel dispenser.  Pickles could feel the cold metal against his belly, see the end of his line of cocaine – he remembered with a little bliss that he hadn’t finished it, jamming his fingers in his mouth to wet them and plunging them clumsily through the powder.  He could see the powder bleached white on his fingers as the bathroom turned a deep midnight blue in the background, guitars screaming around him, and Tony slurred in a thousand voices, “I love you, man!” and plunged his hard dick into Pickles’ cunt just as he pushed his fingers back into his mouth, rubbing the powder harsh across his gums.

“Fuuuuuck, duuuuuude….!  _I love bloooooooowwwwwwwwwww………!”_

Pickles slammed his eyes open, a cold sweat on his forehead and a tingling on his gums as he twitched on the gross maroon shag of his floor rug.  Fuck, fuck.  What the fuck.  What the fuck was that.  With his heart spluttering in his chest, he jerked where he lay, Offdensen’s warning and Toki’s haunted, sleepless eyes circling in his head even as _I Love Blow_ echoed out of his subconsciousness.

With heart-stopping panic, his hands raced over his body, down his bare chest – fine, if a bit chubby and now, glazed with sweat – to his crotch.  His desperate panting slowed as his clammy fingers closed around the base of his penis, and he let out a weak sob of relief.  Oh fuck.  Oh, thank fuck.  Oh thank fuck, thank fuck.  It was only a dream.  The little dude was still… all there.

The drummer sprawled on his rug, staring up at the ceiling.  That was the last, creepy straw.  Something had to be done.

 

**STOCKHOLM**

* * *

 

It was the prettiest dress, and this was the best night ever.  There was something just so full of life in going out to these events – Toki had always enjoyed them, spoiling some beautiful starlet with champagne and corsages and dancing and being talked to like he was important.  Even when he didn’t understand what he was being talked to about, he loved meeting new people who just wanted to chat about such happy things like their nice cruise ships and guitar models and electronic cigarette endorsement deals and all that stuff.

Tonight, however, there was no need to pretend.  He didn’t have to act responsible or steer the night, didn’t even have to report to anyone – everything was handed to him on a gilded platter.  First a beautiful princess dress, like the costume department had read his mind before he’d even had the thought himself.  It was pastel pink, long-sleeved, long hemmed and quite modest, cut to feminise his shape though that hadn’t passed Toki’s mind; it made him look like fucking Juliet and came with cute little shoes and cute white stockings and a _fucking cute_ matching pink diamond tiara and neckpiece, courtesy of the gala hosts, and every dainty step he took was on a fluffy candyfloss cloud of happiness.

Next, a limo ride to the hotel the event was taking place at, a massive luxurious palace of a place in Stockholm.  Toki hardly noticed the awkward space between the other two and Pickles, all outfitted in grim black suits – Pickles fiddled with the diamond cufflinks that had been attached to him and tried to make conversation while Skwisgaar and Murderface stared bullets through him in silence. 

In order to get the bass player there, Ofdensen had attempted to pull some strings to limited success; he was allowed to send four people as before, intended to be Skwisgaar, Toki, and their two dates, but now was forced to send Murderface in the place of Skwisgaar’s date.  He’d explained that it was Skwisgaar’s own fault for taking so long to pick someone to go with him to angry, halting barks of “I don’t care.  There will be ladies there anyhows, fucking models, whatever!”, his very tone evidence to the contrary.  Murderface on the other hand had had a pink corsage prepared.  It went very well with Toki’s dress.

On the other side of the rollerdrome incident, both Murderface and Skwisgaar were incredibly suspicious of Pickles’ intentions towards Lesbian Candyland Princess Frøya.  Murderface’s knives had multiplied again, held in his fist to be pocketed later – Toki, an idiot, gawked at them in the limo enough for Murderface to sit beside him and explain their details in lavish language.  They were throwing knives, streamlined with a subtle curve, so shaped to slice their way through the air with a viper-quick flick of the wrist.  One hit, thwack, straight through the heart.  He’d been practicing in his spare time, and, well, Murderface was a humble man but even he had to admit he was getting pretty good.  Of course, a girl like Frøya wouldn’t understand all the mechanics necessarily but… surely even she could appreciate a well-flung knife.

“What the fuck are ya doin Murderface?”  Pickles stared at them from across the limo, exiled to the opposite seats on his own.  “Schut up, you!” came Murderface’s complaint but Pickles just made eye contact with Toki and carried on, as he was wont to do: “You’re talkin her ear off there.  She looks bored, dude, she don’t wanna hear it.”

“Well sche don’t wanna talk to you neither!  Don’t lischten to him, honey, you’re worth more than that creep.”

Toki gazed forlornly back at Pickles even as Murderface grabbed his hands and held them tenderly.  The other two were cutting off every attempt the drummer made at reaching him and he still didn’t really understand why – something about the bathroom incident, but what was so wrong with that?  Shouldn’t they be glad that he wasn’t a lesbian?  Ah – no, that was it.  They were jealous.  Jealous of Pickles, getting all the attention.  Toki tried to give his friend a look that said, _don’t worry, I understands, it am okays with me,_ but with his heaped on eyeshadow and mascara and delicate, flirty smile came across as more of a full on eyefuck.

Pickles sat back abruptly, bugging his eyes at the Norwegian.

“I can’t deal with this.  Oooh, I cannot… deal with this,” he moaned and rubbed his eyes.  “Murderface, just give her some room.  She’s Skwisgaar’s date, anyway.”

“She's not my date.”  Skwisgaar’s voice dripped with derision as he spoke up for the first time on their trip.  He was being hurtful, refusing to look at Toki and sitting rigidly with a good foot of space between himself and Pickles.  Given an opening, though, well, Pickles wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity like that.

“No?  I thought that was the point, right?  She’s… she’s with you,” he prodded, arching his pierced eyebrow.  “I mean she’s not with me.  I’m – I’m not even allowed to touch her or _something_ now, I mean… Murderface, is she with you?”

Toki looked to Murderface, holding his hands gently in his rough bassist fingers.  Their eyes met for a magical second, and then Murderface immediately let go, shoving the guitarist away.

“Uh, _no._ Asch if I’d wanna fuck schomeone who looksch like Toki!” he spat, shifting away.  “That’sch fucking weird, man!”  Toki’s heart silently broke.

“Yeah, that ams alsos the case for I too.  Pickle…”  Skwisgaar looked pointedly at the drummer, Toki cowering over in his pink dress.  “I… ams not goings to ask.  But… mm, there ams... questions.”

Pickles sighed and looked away, working out a rebuttal, but it grilled poor Toki to see his friend suffer so much at his expense.  After all he’d been the one to follow through with anything – it wasn’t Pickles’ fault.  Tentatively he reached out a hand to comfort Pickles, touching him on the back of the hand, only for Skwisgaar’s fast palm to slap it out of the way with a screech, “ _DON’T TOUCH HIM!”_

“ _Hva_??”  The Norwegian recoiled almost into Murderface’s lap as Skwisgaar turned on him.

“ _Rör inte honom!  Rör inte honom!?_ ” 

Pickles slammed his hands over his ears as Skwisgaar yelled in his faux Norwegian, gritting his teeth.  “Skwisgaar!  Fucking leave her alone!”

“Shut up!”  Skwisgaar leaned into Toki’s face, a shred of hurt in his eyes as he screamed:  “ _Han försökte jävla våldtäkt dig, vad som är fel med dig?_   Stupid bitch!”

“ _Han gjorde ikke det!_ Pickle _er min venn! Det er en misforståelse!_ ” whimpered the Norwegian as Skwisgaar grabbed his shoulders, attempting to shake some sense into him.

“ _Misforståelse?? Misforståelse!?  Vad fan betyder det? Jag talar inte Norska!_ ”  Murderface’s hand pushed into Skwisgaar’s chest as he shoved him off of Toki, pulling the Norwegian into a protective embrace.

“Schkwischhgaar!  Back off!  Jeschusch!”  The bassist kept his hand in Skwisgaar’s chest until the guitarist sat back again, turning a harsh shoulder on the others to scowl out the tinted window.    “Toki would be scho dischappointed in you!  Schhe’sch juscht trying to be niche.”

But Skwisgaar just glared out the window in stubborn silence.  Awkwardly sat beside him, Pickles straightened his bow tie and turned to the spooked Toki, coddled in Murderface’s strong arms: “Uh, I heard my name.  What did you say?”

Toki only stared back, trapped by his obligations to Offdensen.  “ _Jeg beklager_ Pickle _, jeg kan ikke snakke med deg akkurat nå._ Murderface _er prøver å ta tak i min pupp og det skremmer meg litt._ ”

“Oh, that’s cute.”  Sure, it was annoying not being able to reach him, but it was a rarity to hear Toki so comfortable speaking, but here he was – the Norwegian just rolled off his tongue, even though Skwisgaar gave a little huff of half-understanding by Pickles’ shoulder.

“Schay schomething elsche,” prodded Murderface, squeezing Toki’s shoulder, and the Norwegian obliged.

“Um, Pickle _, jeg har mange blandede følelser om hele greia, men jeg finne at jeg skulle fortelle deg, pikken din smaker som harsk_ bong _vann og blåmuggost, kanskje._ ”

“Ahaha, that’s cool!  I only speak American, ya know.”  Pickles glanced at Murderface and raised an eyebrow at him in the silence that followed, Toki turning to play with the silver feathers and chains that dangled from the huge pink diamond at the centre of his neckpiece.  “You better look after her tonight, Murderface, or I will kick your ass, I swear to god.”

“Crossch my heart and hope to die,” promised the bassist, but Toki could feel his fingers shift over one another to cross where they rested on the waist of his dress.


	12. NARKOTIKA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [snake in a suit,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr6z_SST0Kc) knick dubbler
> 
> !!!SPOILER/CW there's some themes of implied intention to date rape in this chapter, which might be pretty intense for some readers. SPOILER that won't happen. SPOILER but keep your head about you and stay comfy, folks SPOILER!!!

**STOCKHOLM**

* * *

 

The standard red carpet awaited them at the gala, cutting them through the line; being the biggest celebrities worldwide had some perks, although tonight it was accompanied by a swarm of paparazzi flashes, screams and video cameras.  Ofdensen had been harsh in his warning on this point: if Toki was to appear in public so afflicted, as it were, he must stay hyper aware of his role as Frøya.  Arms back, head up, back straight, roll the hips.  It was somewhat beyond the guitarist what this was meant to accomplish, or how even to roll his hips, but the point was impressed on him so sternly that a cold, childhood anxiety slithered over his stomach, taking residence there and twitching whenever he dared slump in the public eye.

Fortunately his wide, bamboozled eyes were taken as endearing by the general media, and the way Skwisgaar snatched his hand to drag him down the red carpet merely added to the general delight at prying into celebrities’ love lives.  Skwisgaar resented making the decision, his palm soft and warm in Toki’s hand, but he’d done some quick calculations and narrowed his options like so:

Option 1: Retain dignity, shaft Murderface and allow Pickles to assume the role as Frøya’s date, putting the girl in active danger since apparently the drummer just could not control himself at present.  He got like that sometimes, got anxious or self-conscious and dove headfirst into hardcore alcoholic benders and tore some poor girl’s top off by accident, shooting out a hand to catch himself on the way to the floor - and sure, they all had their moments.  But there was something about Frøya - perhaps her relative innocence, gauged by Murderface’s call of virginity, her general wonderment and silence and Skwisgaar’s detached memories of Toki’s parents - which brought out a weird, begrudging protective streak in Skwisgaar.  Too much so to throw her to the dogs, anyhow.  So that was out.

Option 2: Retain dignity, shaft Pickles and allow Murderface to assume the role as Frøya’s date.  While this kept the girl relatively safe, the idea of turning up at an event dateless while Murderface dragged even an ugly girl around by the waist was fucking mortifying.  Skwisgaar would like to believe he was above that, he _was_ above that, but without Nathan to shut them up Murderface and Pickles, as the two most vocal members of the band, would never let him forget the time Murderface had a date and Skwisgaar did not.

So getting out of the limo first, his long body unfolding like an insect as the others crowded behind him, he had no choice but to resort to option three.  Skwisgaar snatched Toki’s hand and pulled him to his side, beaming at the cameras and crushing the Norwegian’s fingers in a vice-like grip intended only to convince him to keep in step and shut up or face grave consequences.  For his part Toki happily played along, trotting along after once he’d gotten his footing in the shallow heels and thanking god for the touch.

Inside, the gala had been assigned the grand ballroom of the luxury hotel - in that classic faux Noveau style, all copper fittings and brown and beige polished marble, basked in the warm light of glittering chandeliers overhead.  The diamond company had outfitted it with vast skirted tables of canapes and hors-d'oeuvres, occasionally ferried about by waitstaff with trays of champagne, foie gras, shimmering red and black caviar on water crackers, and displays of diamond jewellery laid out on lavish velvet beds and draped around noble ladies’ throats by attendant staff to give them a feel for the weight of luxury.

Skwisgaar dragged Toki past several gaggles of Swedish celebrities to bubbling voices repeating his name, _Skwisgaar Skwigelf, berömda gitarrist_ , only stopping when he almost ran into a waiter and snatching a coupe glass of champagne with his free hand.  

“I wills gonna be needing, somethings stronger.... than this,” he instructed the waiter in an icy tone, but the gangly, suited youth holding the tray turned to Toki before making whatever highly advised exit he should have been.

“And for the lady?”

Toki was handed a large glass brimming with sparkling champagne, his eyes widening at the sight of it.  He barely heard Skwisgaar make a throaty sound of irritation and take his leave, so taken by the crystal clear promise of giddy intoxication in his near future was he, but he felt his hand released - only to take a second coupe, one balanced in each large, manicured hand, the flimsy pastel sleeves of his dress barely wafting around his impressive musculature as he generously thanked the waiter in Norske.

As soon as he took his first sip a familiar, diminutive presence arrived at his elbow and helped itself to two glasses as well, the waiter blinking as he was suddenly relieved of all his cargo.  “Yeah, thanks dude, but what she _really_ wants is a gin.  See if you got Nolet’s?  Yeah.  Neat.  Thank you.”

“Pickle!”  Toki looked down at the drummer as the waiter slipped away.  Alone, it occurred to him, he could talk.

“Toki.”  Pickles toasted him with a glass of champagne, necking the other.  “Nice party, but I was promised cocktails.”

“Aw!  It ams amazing, wowee!  Look at all thems diamonds!”  He ran his fingers under the pink diamond choker, a thick band covered in jewels with the largest cradled at its centre and dripping miniature silver clock weights in imitation of the band’s logo.  The attention to detail was truly commendable, a custom piece especially for sister-of-Toki or, more truthfully, fucktoy-of-Skwisgaar.  Pickles tactfully neglected to raise the point.

“It ams so expensives.  So fancys, oh!”  The Norwegian stared through his champagne at Pickles, the drummer about to interject when another American voice, hoarse and nasal, interrupted.

“Well helllooo, if it isn’t my favourite drummer Pickles, uh ‑ ‑ ‑”  Dick ‘Magic Ears’ Knubbler fitted right into the throngs in his white tunic-cut suit, filing through the crowds towards them with a lavish, fruity cocktail balanced in his fingers, but even he, so familiar with Dethklok, blanked on the surname.  “ ‑ ‑ ‑ Pickles!  F _aa_ ncy seeing you here!”

“Knubbler!”  Pickles turned on the spindly producer as he approached, visibly relieved for the outside company and eyeing his cocktail enviously.  “Fuck, where’d you get that!”

“Aw, you just have to ask the waiters, babe!  You’re looking smooth tonight!”  Knubbler flashed the drummer a broad sharky grin, distinctly unsettling.  Pickles found his hand relieved of the empty coupe glasses as the waiter returned, swapping their empties for the gin as Toki helped himself to another glass of champagne from his tray whilst he was nearby.

“Uh, thanks – thanks, Knubbler.  You too.  You know, I could kill a bloody mary ‑ ‑ ‑”  But his efforts to lead the conversation astray fell on deaf ears as the producer seized Toki’s free hand, beaming electrifyingly at the Norwegian.

“And who’s the little lady!  That pink, those diamonds!  Baby, you’re on _fire_!” he gushed, raising Toki’s hand to plant a peck on his knuckles in greeting, “Gosh, and those eyes... it’s like gargling Bols and roxys, babe, and I am overdosing!”

“Uh.  Fuck.”  Pickles took in the sight, Knubbler giggling inanely as Toki stared at him in wonder, and downed the gin in one.  “She’s... she’s Toki’s sister, Knubbler.  Froya or somethin.  She doesn’t really speak American, dude.”

“Frøya,” corrected Toki, and Knubbler only grinned wider, his smile threatening to decapitate him as his digital eyes phased hypnotic bright green before Toki.

“Freya Wartooth.  My, that’s lovely,” he purred back, then turned his attention down to Pickles.  “She’s with you?  That’s a bit weird, isn’t it, fucking Toki’s sister?  I mean.  The resemblance is uncanny!”  The drummer winced as Knubbler forged straight ahead, as though saying she didn’t speak it gave him permission to cuss her out.  Toki’s sucked lemon face was enough.

“Uh, yeah it would be, but, uh, she’s like, gay, dude.”  Now that it slipped out, it was an incredibly convenient excuse.  “We’re just hangin out.  Takin care of her.  She’s a, ha, bit of a handful though, ain’t ya, Froyo?”

Pickles elbowed Toki, shooting him a wince to drop the deer-in-headlights look which the Norwegian thankfully took.  “ _Ja_ ,” he said, smiling politely back, and Knubbler just tittered.

“Oh, that explains the gin!  You know, one of the mixologists is from Linje Tio, very much recommended if you’re here a while – you should ask for his La Belle Epoque, you won’t regret it.  Or...”  Pickles had just about zoned out of the conversation when Knubbler withdrew something from his pocket, a little fold of fabric the drummer knew well stashed his drugs.  He opened it in his palm, standing close to them so they wouldn’t be seen, to reveal a small handful of blue capped gelatin capsules, otherwise filled with a white salt.  “You could have one of these.  I don’t mind, I’m a generous person, haa?”

“Fuck... what are those?” asked Pickles out of the corner of his mouth as he took two and pocketed them, and Knubbler snivelled around his smile.

“Not here, babe.  I’ll tell you in the bathroom.”  He folded them away again and stowed them, beckoning Pickles away.  “We’ll be right back, honey.”  Pickles barely glanced over his shoulder before neatly cutting Toki out of their world, erased as so little as a date or woman, and neither of them saw his eyes flick down to follow one of the blue pills as it sprung unnoticed to the floor, bouncing over the marble tiles.

“Pickle,” Toki called, stooping to pick it up, but the drummer had already been lured away.  Anxiously hiding the pill in his palm as he realised the dress totally lacked pockets, Toki sipped the last of the champagne and scanned the crowds for Murderface or Skwisgaar to help.  Neither were anywhere to be found.  Well, whatever, fuck it.  If Pickles could have a good time with Knubbler, then so could Toki.  He followed, slipping through the crowd of suits, in pursuit of their dual bald and blonde crowns.

 

**MORDHAUS**

* * *

 

“Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuuuuuuh.”

Nathan’s sigh, rendered poorly above, was so large that it filled his entire room.  Sitting up in bed with the laptop on his legs and glasses perched on his nose, he had exhausted the entire Internet.  Maybe it was the prospect of a cancelled night out, but the sheer disappointment had made even the weird porn boring.  Even posting weird porn on the fan forums.  Fucking... awful night.

He had been about to email it to Toki, something that would usually provide at least five minutes of entertainment in the form of “what is this I don;ts understand.... how she ams dos that. wow..” messages back, when he remembered the guitarist’s extended absence, and another sigh belched forth from him.

“HHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh _hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhUUUHHHH._ ”

Nathan shut the laptop.  Useless then.  Amy (a lovely girl, really, Hong Kong-Canadian...) had cancelled their date and the others were all gone and fuck, he spent all his days wishing for some time alone to just jack off and watch crap and now he got it, he felt kinda... ~~lonely~~ bored.  Definitely just bored.  FUCKING BORED.

Maybe it’d help to have a bigger screen.  Reluctantly Nathan hauled himself out of bed and into his robe, dragging himself down the corridor towards the TV room.  He’d gotten about half way down when he came to Toki’s door, slowing to look at it, and – fighting a pang of ~~hurt~~ frustration at the little jack off’s unexplained absence – decided to deal with it now, pushing into Toki’s room, the door surprisingly unlocked.

It smelt stale, the delicate chasses of model planes swinging slowly in the gloom.  Nathan decided not to turn on the light, instead sitting on Toki’s bed and fishing his dethfone from his pocket to call him.  As the phone dialled the hulking frontman turned his eyes up to the models above, their shadows cast through the light from the door bringing scattered childhood images bubbling to the surface of his memory.  Nathan’s frown furrowed as he pushed them back into the swamp again.  Creepy hobby really.  Being so into... toys, and shit.

He became distantly aware of a sound in the room with him then.  One of their phones going off... but his was calling Toki in order to yell at him, so – oh!  Nathan picked up Toki’s pillow only to find the phone hidden underneath.  Right, he’d left it with Froyo.  Nathan hung up his phone with one hand and regarded Toki’s, resting in the palm of the other.  It was weird that he’d leave it.  He must have really wanted  to disappear.  Again, a pang of hurt.  Of anger.  Of just... fucking disappointment.

He was about to leave when the phone buzzed in his hand, a text showing up on the screen.  Huh, Pickles?  The text read thus: **its just blues toki dw.  ill be bak in a mo.**

Huh?  Nathan unlocked the screen and was taken straight to Toki’s messages.  Even at a glance he could tell there were quite a lot from Pickles, but his curiosity was getting the better of him.  Struggling with the tiny pad, he messaged back “what blues?” but the text he sent just wouldn’t fucking come out right.

**what blue**

Fuck it, close enough.  Nathan squinted at the screen as he scrolled up.  Were the others with Toki then?  Was Pickles with Toki?  Why would they keep that from him?  Fuck... it was all hurting his head.

The previous messages read thusly:

TOKI:

**pickle**

**pickle**

**am sorry**

PICKLES:

**bout wat**

TOKI:

**last night???**

PICKLES:

**dont wanna talk about it dude**

What...

Nathan poked the little squares until they came up with their details – these had been sent just the other day!  What the fuck!  Well sure, it was Froyo texting under Toki’s name, but just now hadn’t Pickles called her ‑ ‑ ‑

wait ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ 

wait.

just one fucking minute.

As the rage was rising up Nathan’s throat like magma, the phone gave a feeble buzz in his hand as Pickles replied.  **in** **da pills.** **its just ghb. u dont want any trust me. DKs a fukin fraud.**

He was quivering as he rose from the bed, wandering in a stupor down the hall.  As he neared the conference room he could hear Offdensen’s voice echo about him, taunting him, the manager having advised him he had a private call this evening to attend to.  But it made the bile seethe across Nathan’s tongue to be cheated.  They’d all lied to him, played him for a dupe.  Someone had to pay, and if it had to be Charlie, then fucking so be it.  At least the guy could hold his own and take responsibility for his dirty business. 

 “I just think it’s a little hazardous, you know.  I’ve, uh, never had a hesitation doing it chemically, but your, uh, psychical trance state, so to speak, that’s another animal,” came his stiff voice, “Toki has an extensive history of emotional abuse and manipulation, particularly within a religious context.  I just don’t want to trigger anything unnecessary, Ástríð.  You wouldn’t like to see him ‑ ‑ ‑”

Nathan threw open the door to Offdensen’s straight back, his body shaking with rage.

“‑ ‑ ‑ in distress.  It’s just not enjoyable.  Good evening, Nathan.”

The motherfucker didn’t even turn around.  On the screen above them was a woman’s face, blue shadowed by a cowl she wore and the poor video feed.  When Offdensen did look over his shoulder, however, Nathan just crumbled.

“What the fuck’s Toki playing at?” he demanded in a throaty growl, and Offdensen exchanged glances with the woman on the screen.

“You might want to sit down, Nathan,” he said kindly, stepping away and indicating to one of the chairs.  “We’ll tell you everything.  I promise.”

 

**STOCKHOLM**

* * *

 

Pickles rolled the capsules about on his tongue before swallowing them, his eye kept on Knubbler as he laughed and chatted to him, leaning casually on the granite bathroom bench, the roll of pills laid out between them.

“So, you know, kinda like a mad scientist!  Isn’t that funny?  So yeah, I mean, who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity?  It’s pure shit, babe, pure fuuuuucking shit.”  Knubbler was trying to tell him how this chemical was, in fact, an experimental concoction somewhere between ecstasy and ketamine but more psychedelic that a, uh, friend, acquaintance, of his had been working on, but feeling the weight of the capsule, the edge of potassium salt stinging his tongue, Pickles wasn’t fooled for a second.  It was just GHB.  Had to be.  Still a good time, but none of this ‘a thing he calls hyper-E, babe’ bullshit.

“Whatever, Knubbler.  Thanks.”  At least they were easy to take.  Baby drugs compared to coke or heroin, but no one wanted to be snorting salt anyway.  Pickles shut his eyes, wallowing in the champagne tingles as he waited for the drugs to set in and listening to Knubbler’s nasal titterings blend together in his mind.

“... afterparty upstairs in the hotel!  I heard they’re rounding up all the babes for it, y’know, all the models and actresses, well, you get the idea.  Just a nice... big... naked party.  I guess you gotta cater for a Skwigelf, huh?  Huh-huh-huh-huhhh...”

Sounded quite good, honestly, catching the edge of an orgy.  Pickles opened his eyes to the bathroom door opening slowly and Toki’s wide, mascaraed gaze peering in, and it took him a moment of “Hey, Toki- ‑ ‑yo,” to process Knubbler’s silence and loose hanging jaw.

“Oh, yeah, fuck, uh, Froyo, you can’t be in here, sweetheart, this is the...”  As he took a step towards his friend, Pickles found his feet detached, distant, a thousand miles down his legs.  Still he staggered towards the Norwegian. “... men’s room... sweetie.  Baby.  You can’t come in here.”

He laid his numb hands on Toki’s shoulders and turned him around, guiding him gently out again, only to come face to face with Murderface’s ugly mug rounding the corner.  The thoughts ticked over slowly in his mind, chewed up by the quick drug.  “Oh... shit.”

“ _Motherfucker!_ ” 

Pickles barely had time to lift his hands off Toki before Murderface’s fist found home against his cheekbone with a crack.  He’d have reeled if he’d had time to reel – enraged, Murderface was already laying into his gut, Toki uselessly standing by as the drummer went down under Murderface’s fists and then dancing away, the pill hot and squishy in his palm.

He slipped into the men’s room again, Knubbler smiling turtlelike as soon as the door closed on them both.  “Hey, honey.  Are the boys okay out there?”

“ _Ja_ , uh, _det bra_ ,” he replied, and then awkwardly thrust forward his fist, the blue pill seized in his clammy hand and held out to Knubbler.  “You drop.”

“Oh!”  Knubbler’s eyes flashed at it, and a weird smirk came across his face.  “What a sweet gesture, babe, I’m flattered... tell you what... you’ve been such a good girl... you can have it, if you want?” he purred, and Toki took a look at the pill.

“ _Hva?_ ” he asked, turning the warm gelatin around in his fingers, and Knubbler’s smile only stewed wider.

“Uh, it’s just a fun little pill, babe, just chills you out, you know?  Maybe some nice colours.  Try it.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Don’t worry.  I’ll look after you.  You can trust me, can’t you, honey?”

Toki put his tongue out, dropping the pill onto it and holding it in his mouth, but Knubbler was no stranger to this behaviour, putting out a delicate white hand to raise Toki’s chin and push shut his jaw.  “Now swallow.”

Toki swallowed.

“Good girl.”  Knubbler grinned at him.  “You can hang out with me while you peak... then there’s a little party later if you wanna come... in a room upstairs?  Why not come join us?  Sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

Toki nodded, dumbly, as Knubbler took his hand, a weird twist on his voice as he started to natter away.  Well, if Pickles could have drug fun tonight, so could he.  Toki could hold his own.  It’d be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scorecard:  
> Nathan - KNOWS, FUCKING ANGRY ABOUT IT  
> Pickles - knows, lying unconscious in a corridor outside the toilets, again  
> Skwisgaar - oblivious, chatting up models  
> Murderface - oblivious, escorting Freya to try on diamonds with blood on his knuckles  
> Toki - marble doesn't usually like, undulate like that, does it? wowee


	13. RØRE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops, it was too long  
> more skwistok next chapter

**STOCKHOLM**

* * *

 

When Pickles came to on the floor of the hotel just outside the men’s bathroom, he noticed three things:

  1. Someone had moved him so that he was propped against the wall out of the way.  Good thinking there.  The photos of his drunk, loaded, beaten ass would probably be online tomorrow if he was lucky; if not, they’d be in print;
  2. Neither Toki nor Knubbler was anywhere to be seen (and Murderface, too, had abandoned him with several ripening bruises and a thin trail of dried blood down his top lip); and
  3. He was in a hole, and in the hole he was staying.



Not an actual hole in so many words, but rather one of the unique traits of those heavy tranquilisers, both ketamine and GHB causing a sensation where, under large doses, one felt sucked into a deep void within oneself, a pit of sensation and thought and, if one succumbed and stopped moving, a comatose state or worse, unconsciousness.  Pickles had already been reeling and slumped against the wall when it kicked in, and now there was no getting up.  That rare paranoia gripped at him with cold, clammy fingers: perhaps he would never get out of it.

But Pickles was a more experienced user than to fall prey to that goofy old paranoia.  It was just the G-hole talking, or - if Knubbler was right about the makeup of his drugs - perhaps the K-hole instead.  Feeling it grope at his guts, a cold liquid spread around his liver and spleen, Pickles toyed with working out which it was.  K or G?  He focused on the other sensations rippling slowly through his consciousness.

Like with ketamine, his limbs, even the idea of moving them, felt untouchable, so far away from him even though he could vaguely see them splayed in front of him, the white tick of his Vans poking from the hem of his suit trousers.  A soft, gentle fuzz accompanied every sensation; he knew he was injured but couldn’t feel anything but a pleasant hum coming from deep in his muscles - but it was like GHB in that he felt sexual, sensual, even struck out like that, a warmth that filled him up like poured honey.  And then there was a blissful K drunkness that muffled everything.  So K or G?  He couldn’t seem to care.  Even his acute sense of danger coming through as little more than a pulse.

He tried to focus on it and found himself further in the dark, slipped back from his body into the hole.  In the emptiness he saw a glowing light or a button, maybe, like the ones on the studio switchboard, swelling with red light and throbbing a gentle beat.  As he came closer to it he could see writing on it, labelling it on the switchboard.  If it was lit up, that meant that thing was turned on somewhere, right?  The label said: **DANGER**.  Or did it say **TOKI**?  Now that he looked closer he couldn’t work out which, the letters swimming away from his mind as he tried to read them.

Now his hand was floating over the switch and it was huge, bigger than his hand, and the text on it said **GHB**.  He pushed forward his open palm to press the button and it turned off and he could see the corridor again, feel a warm hum from his puffy eye socket.  GHB… GHB… oh yeah.  He’d taken two blues.  He was sure they were blues, they’d tasted like blues, like a potassium acid reflux up the back of his throat.  But fuck, he’d just been sucked right down then.  To have that kind of effect on his jaded system, they must have been an incredibly high dosage.

So well done, Knubbler.  Knocking around with some quality shit, somewhere out there in the increasingly distant world to Pickles’ sedated body.  Didn’t think he had it in him, but then the counts of prostitution and other dodgy bullshit made for a consistent record.

A bloated, slow thought floated up through Pickles’ consciousness.  If Knubbler had this record as a dodgy fucker, right, something Pickles hadn’t ever looked at closely really, content to be willfully ignorant of the abuse going on around him, then why was he just casually throwing around heavy tranquilisers?  Taking a little ketamine to get through a public event was nothing, Pickles did it all the time, but carrying _enough_ of the stuff to chuck a seasoned drug veteran like the drummer into a K-hole was another thing entirely.

Wait.  Knubbler’s pointed mention of the orgy swam through Pickles’ low consciousness, then the kissy lips he made any time he’d spoken to Toki that night.  God damn it, that creep!  And Pickles had promised Offdensen he’d look after the Norwegian!  A much realer paranoia struck him then in the form of harsh wrist-twisting, cut allowances, and worst of all, the R-Word he dared not speak lest the fucking suit get ideas again.  Fuck, what time was it anyway?  Hours could have passed.  Toki could be fucking dead by now and he’d just been lying on the floor this whole time.  His ass was fucking suit grass!

What Pickles lacked in motor skills he made up for in sheer audacity.  Fuck the G-hole, he was getting out.  It took every blink of awareness he still had to drag himself up the wall, but somehow he managed it, teetering on his sneakers precariously as he started the long stagger down the hall.  It looked softer, darker.  Each step lurched, like dragging his body behind his consciousness, sloping into the walls with his body echoing back at him in its numbness.  But the paranoia had finally got its nails in, sinking its fingers into his guts, and a warbling howl tore loose from his throat: “ _TOKI?  MURDERFACE?  WHERE ARE YOU GUYS??!_ ”

When he got to the main hall, standing on the overlooking staircase, its vast marble steps an insurmountable obstacle down before him, he saw it had almost totally cleared except for a few hardcore alcoholics, drunk heiresses weeping into their diamonds and business moguls slumped in their own vomit.  The lights had been dimmed.  The party was over.  Pickles clutched the broad balcony rail in terror and garbled to himself with mindless fear.  “Ooh no, ooh no oh no oh no, holy shit, I’ve lost him, I’ve lost Toki!”

He took one step down the stairs, clinging desperately to the rail, before immediately losing track of his legs to the anxious and greedy hole and falling backwards, his skull hitting the marble with a sick crack.  It didn’t knock him out, but lying with his back arched over the stairs, the impact from the fall ricocheting through his brain, Pickles could once again feel the pull of the hole sucking through his gut.

Lying there, the soft glow of the crystal chandelier throbbing in his vision, a familiar octagonal mound of frizzy hair swam into view above.

“Picklesch?  What the hell are you doing down there?” came Murderface’s petulant whine, and Pickles just squirmed on the marble.

“Murderface!  Knubbler gave me some fuckin horse pills and I fell over and now I can’t get up!  Fuckin give a dude a hand!” he slurred and Murderface glared down at him.

“You alwaysch have to rub it in everyone’sch fache don’t you Picklesch!   _Oh! I’m Picklesch the drummer, I’m overdosching on horsche pillsch like a motherfucker!  Oh!  Dude!  I’m choking on fuckin virgin bathroom pusschy, fuck!_ ”  But bless, the bassist reached down regardless, grabbing Pickles’ arms and hauling him roughly to his feet.  Pickles nearly fell again immediately, but Murderface slung his limp arm over his broad shoulder, holding his weak body upright.  O dark lord, smile upon Murderface.  The guy was a fucking dick, but at least he could be relied upon.

“Murderface,”  Pickles pressed the hand of the arm wrapped around Murderface’s neck to the bassist’s cheek, his rough stubble feeling intense against his skin under the powerful drug.  “We have to - we have - where’s Toki?  I told you to…”

But Murderface didn’t understand at all.  Blinking his beady eyes at Pickles, he shied away from the fingers now stabbing at his moustache.  “I don’t know!  Charlesch schaid Norway, didn’t he?”

“ _Norway??_ ”  Pickles felt the void open up in him as his addled mind grasped at the strings of comprehension.  “He’s… we have to find him!  We have to go get him, Will!”

“Can you get to Norway from Schweden?” asked the bassist, his face squashed by Pickles’ groping hand.  “You can, right?  It’sch closche, right.  We can probably, uh, you know, get a taxchi, you know?”

“Catch a cab?  Where?”  This was really fucking hard!  There was something important he had to do, but Pickles could only watch as it slipped away from him again.  Murderface’s large body beside him was warm and solid, he could feel its curves beneath the sleek cut of the black suit as he was manhandled by the bassist.

“To Norway!”

“To _Norway??_  Why?”

“To find Toki!”  

Something clicked over in Pickles’ slow brain, and he slurred out:  “Oh no, no, no, he’s here!  I mean - fuck!  Fuck, shit!  Oh, fuck!  I mean - - -” What did he mean?  What was the fake name again?  Oh, shit, wait, it was like... “Yoghurt!  We have to find Yoghurt!”

“Yoghurt,” repeated Murderface slowly as Pickles attempted to climb his front and grabbed his face with his free hand, squashing his cheeks together and forcing his lips to purse grotesquely.

“Yeah, Fro - Frozen Yoghurt!  Frogurt!  Dude, where is she?  You were meant to be taking care of her!  You fuckin punched me in the face over that bitch and then you just - - - let her go get fucked over by some creep?!”  If Pickles had been any more conscious he would have socked Murderface right then, but everything kept blurring, slurring.  Even trying to wrap his hand around the motherfucker’s throat he found himself distracted by the warm flesh, manifesting more as a weird caress that a choke.

“Oh, _Froya!_ ”  Light dawned in Murderface’s eyes like the welcome sunrise on Antarctica.  “I thought sche wasch with Schkwischgaar!”

“With _Skwisgaar?_ ”  He’d forgotten the Swede was even here.

“Yeah, with Schkwischgaar!  Sche wasch following him around earlier like a fucking...bitch in heat!”  Pickles slid down Murderface’s body slightly as he protested, looking up at his friend.  Toki had probably just gotten drunk and wanted a friend, but Murderface couldn’t see it that way - just the pain of more lies and being ditched for the beautiful people.  “Sche’s schuch a little… the schame asch all the othersch, Picklesch!  Descheptive, fucking, meduscha fucking schlut!”

Pickles swayed uneasily against Murderface’s firm arm, barely held upright against the bassist’s side, his combover askew, and tried to focus his eyes.  He touched Murderface’s face some more, his hand grazing the bassist’s frizzy hair and then instantly burying his fingers deep.  Fuck, it felt amazing.  “Murderface,” he slurred blissfully, and shivered all over, forgetting entirely what he was doing. 

“Picklesch,” said Murderface, and straightened the drummer’s bow tie for him, a stoned hand groping at his hair.

“We.... we have to find Froghurt.  I told... Charlie will kill me if we don’t.  But you gotta be here for me dude!  You gotta...”  Pickles’ eyes focused for a moment, but the only thing he saw was Murderface, so it was a waste really.  “ _... think_.  If you were Skwisgaar... where would you be?”

“If I was Schkwischgaar...?”  Murderface closed his eyes and thought.  If he was Skwisgaar, he’d probably be jacking off in front of a mirror and eating just, a mountain, of whipped cream and strawberries.  Maybe off of young ladies’ tits.  Watching himself lick whipped cream off their tits while they were laughing and like, _Oh Murder—uh, Skwisgaar, you’re so handsome!_   Yeah, that sounded like something Skwisgaar would do.  Murderface’s eyes snapped open.  “If I was Schkwischgaar I’d be drowning in pusschy!”

“Shit, Murderface, you’re right!  The orgy!”  Pickles’ fist closed with the realisation, yanking Murderface’s hair to a nasal _“Ow!_ ” in protest.  “We haveta find the orgy!”

“What _orgy?_ ”

“There’s an orgy, dude.  Upstairs.”  Pickles blinked, resuming stroking Murderface’s hair from deep within the fuzz.  “We should totally go, dude, it’s been months since I’ve been in an orgy.” 

“Upschtairsch?? Why waschn’t I invited??”  As if that wasn’t perfectly obvious.

“Well, I’m inviting you now, okay?  Let’s go.  Come on, dude.  You’re my legs... I’m totally relying on you.”  That worked a charm with Murderface lurching determinedly into the corridor, dragging the staggering Pickles along.  Pickles leaned on his shoulder to enjoy the ride.  Good old Murderface.  You just had to dangle a little carrot in front of the donkey’s face, and off you went.

 

**ELSEWHERE**

* * *

 

After taking the pill off Knubbler, Toki had stayed long enough to get thoroughly creeped out by the producer getting closer and closer to him as Knubbler had held an entirely one-sided conversation about how he was apparently responsible for all the greatness of Toki’s music while the man himself stood there meekly in his pink dress and squeaked “ _Ja_ ,” at timed intervals.  He didn’t feel anything but fuzzy from the champagne, and he’d never thought Knubbler had that much effect on their music.  It was weird to learn that so much happened at the mixing stage!  But when Knubbler tried to grab his chest, Toki was out of the bathroom like a shot.

Hiking up his skirts, he bolted past Pickles’ drooling form and back to the main hall, following the sound of the chamber orchestra playing and skidding on the marble of the stairs before he started down them.  He hadn’t felt anything but the light looked somehow more magical, refracting off the chandeliers as he stepped down the staircase feeling like a real princess.  Across the crowded floor, the people seemed to part, giving him a path straight to a tall figure in black, his blonde hair cascading down his shoulders.  Skwisgaar... with Murderface raging and Pickles unconscious, Skwisgaar could be his white knight.

At that moment, the drug kicked in.

Time slowed around Toki as the orchestra seemed to chug out their beautiful song and he heard the metal in it as he stepped through the throngs towards his gorgeous friend, the soft light forming a halo against Skwisgaar’s blonde crown.  When the Swede turned to look at him, curling his lip in disgust, Toki felt a deep, beautiful warmth flow through his heart and a wonderful hope for the future blossom within him like an unfolding flower, and then the cream cheques of marble were lighting up beneath his little white shoes as he stepped towards that beacon of music and friendship.

Toki reached out his hand for Skwisgaar’s as he came within distance, and the Swede’s slender hand took his own, pulling him close against his body, his long hand impossibly soft and his hair glowing like white gold.  His hand tight around Toki’s wrist, Skwisgaar hissed down at him through a locked sneer: “ _Ruins this fors me and I ams pluckings each and everys fucking pube outs of yous dyke pussy one by one.”_

Toki stared up at him, then noticed the gaggle of models standing to his side, staring at them.  Skwisgaar dropped him, shaking him off as he waltzed back over to the girls, shepherding them away, and Toki’s heart fell into itself as the crowd closed up around them again.  Staring after the blonde glow stepping away into the throngs, he could feel the tears swelling heavy and raised an arm to cover his eyes as he dashed out again, back into the corridors. 

His heart pounded within him and his feet beneath him as he ran blindly deeper into the hotel.  It was darker there, a thick gloom in the hallways as he moved upwards in the building.  Finally, his foot catching on the carpet, he tripped, losing his shoe as he went tumbling forwards face-first into the floor.  How could Skwisgaar be so heartless.  Toki dragged himself to the wall to nurse his heart and weep, but soon found the weight of the world pulling in.  It felt like a hole... a blissful big hole... and then he was gone, nodded out on his own in the dark, empty gut of the hotel.


	14. PORNO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HECK YES THET'S A THRET

**TOP FLOOR**

* * *

 

As they had struggled up the stairs, Pickles’ humid, trip-fever armpit slung over Murderface’s shoulder, the lights had dimmed further.  Pickles had cursed them out, feeling sucked, as Murderface just squinted and hauled him more determinedly through the darkness.  It had to be getting late.  The hotel was slipping into sleep, and still no sign of either Scandinavian.

Well, that was a lie.  They’d found a shoe.  Well, Murderface had found a shoe.  Well, Pickles had stepped on a shoe, the heel of it stabbing up through his soft sneaker sole like a stoned Prince Charming, and Murderface had yelled at him a lot and then they’d picked it up to examine.  A quite large, designer white shoe with shallow heels.  Murderface correctly identified it as Froya’s, and Pickles turned a nauseous Celtic pink.  His trip had only gotten worse since he’d woken up.  What in _fuck_ had Knubbler stuffed in those pills?

The top floor of the hotel was almost a single suite, eerily dark and quiet.  As soon as they staggered up the dark fire stairs, footfall heavy on the bare concrete echoing around them and Pickles cradling the shoe against his chest, to the landing, it was obvious something was going down here - muffled yelling beyond the door.  They crept up the last few stairs of the turn, eyes wide and searching the top landing, and then Murderface flattened Pickles against the cold concrete wall with a winded gasp as the door flung open to an empty bang that crashed around them and a square of black at the top of the stairs.

Their breath lay still within their open mouths as two red lights appeared in the darkness, swelling before them, bright and large with rage and growing as a grey form approached.  The door slammed behind it as it descended the steps, its eyes flickering until their warmth touched their petrified faces with a red glow - and then instantly dimmed, flicking backwards and forth between a digital green and sinister red as Knubbler identified the cowardly shapes before him.

“Oh, hey, uh, guys.  Didn’t - didn’t see you there,” came his shrill wheeze, clearly just retired from screaming, “Uh, what… what are you doing here?  In fact…?  Um… you guys should be on your way home by now, shouldn’t you?”

He was far less terrifying with that reedy voice to him.  Murderface squared up, lifting Pickles to full height in the process.  “We don’t leave until Schkwischgaar leavesch.  If he getsch to schtay, then we all get to schtay.”

“Oh,” said Knubbler.  “That’s… isn’t that sweet?  Uh…”

“Uh, Dick, we’re lookin for, uh, Froghurt,” Pickles interrupted, slurring as he thrust forward the shoe.  Knubbler’s pin point eyes followed it in the dark hollows of his screens.  “We can’t leave without her, Toki’ll fuckin... GUT us.  And, like… lookin for Skwisgaar too, I guess.  She’s supposed to be with… Skwis... Oh!  Fuck!  And that orgy.  Like, dude… where’s the party?”

“Yeah, we’re looking for the party!  The schex party,” echoed Murderface, determined anew.  In just the light from his own eyes, flashing red for barely a heartbeat, they saw Knubbler purse his lips tight.

“Well, uhh, Skwisgaar’s in there, you know, for a start.  Uhh, as is your orgy.  Selfish little son of a slut chucked me out!  Just like a Skwigelf, you know?” he sneered, then gave a sigh.  “But I have a backup plan… uh, I didn’t see Toki’s girl in there, though.  I don’t know where she’s got to - she ran off on me downstairs.  Guess I must have spooked her, huh… maybe she’s got some fucked up history, you know?”

Pickles slumped against Murderface’s shoulder with relief.  “Oh god, I could kiss you right now,” he groaned, the bassist watching him out of the corner of his eye as he hefted his friend’s limp body.

“Uh, ye-ah, Picklesch…” he mumbled, but Knubbler stared right through them.

“Um, okay… anyway, you boys look like you’re having a nice time on your own, so, uh… you’re welcome to try Skwisgaar in there, I mean, you guys are pals, right?  I mean… he’s in a pretty, uh, nasty mood though, think he just wants to be left alone...”  The producer’s eyes darted from drummer to bassist, sharing a weird tender moment, and then down the stairs beside them.  He took one step, then two, starting to slink away without provoking them.  “So I’ll just leave you to it?  Yeah.  Uhh, see you later, guys, good lu ‑ ‑ ‑”

“Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait.”  Fuck, there it was, a clammy, stoned hand on his shoulder.  “Just where do y’think you’re goin?”

“Uhhh, nowhere special, umm...”

“You think you’re so smart, handin out fuckin… large animal, special vet fuckin _pills_ to girls like fuckin, jelly beans, but now, fuckin…”  Pickles swooned forwards, Murderface only just catching him with a stubby hand on his chest and shoving him upright again.  “Skwiss is screamin at you… and we’ve lost something very, _very_ dear to our other guitarist.  I mean, his sister.  And you’re here, you’re not denyin you gave her fuckin animal pills, and I mean me, look at me!  And I can hold it!  She’s a fuckin virgin man!  I mean, maybe she’ll overdose and drown in her own puke.  And that’s cuz of you.  That puke, drownin, that’s on you.  So I _suggest_ …”

Pickles’ sweaty hand tightened on the shoulder of Knubbler’s white jacket as he leaned close, woozily, within accidental headbutting distance.  “... that you think carefully about that fat li’l contract with Dethklok… and give us a hand trackin down this chick, yeah?”

The light dousing them from Knubbler’s eyes phased to red, the creases in his weathered face sinister against the dark.  “Is that a threat?” he wheezed at last, speaking through his teeth.  There were way too many of them, thought Murderface.

“Heck yes!  That’s a threat!”  Pickles released the producer to sway, punching the air with a loose triumphant fist, and Murderface clutched at the front of the drummer’s suit to steady him, hissing, “ _You’re_ a threat,” under his breath.

Knubbler regarded them placidly though his eyes ebbed with red light, mentally making note to bring this behaviour up with Offdensen later.  Though he supposed the manager would defend the sloppy pair to his face, but he’d been working with them long enough to know he’d turn around and subtly change the situation if he felt a true violation had been visited upon Dick.  He might leave out the bit about the pills, though – with Pickles’ habit, he’d discredit himself before he could pin anything on Knubbler.

“Well, if you’re sure...” he sneered, and turned away from the pair, “Uhh, just follow me.  I’ll show you something... pretty cool, yeah, pretty cool.  A secret.  And it’ll be easy to find your girl once we’re down there.”

Pickles and Murderface exchanged looks as Knubbler led away from them down the stairs, the light from his eyes a soft, beckoning glow in the darkness, and then followed him, down into belly of the silent hotel.

 

**NOT QUITE THE TOP FLOOR**

* * *

 

Slumped in the corridor under the weight of the sedative, Toki had closed his eyes to rest them, just for a second, and yet when he opened them again, the lights had gone down.  He was curled next to a lounge in the corridor, the rug plush underneath him, and the tears down his face were dry, stiff lines on his cheeks.  Now that he gazed about, wide-eyed, he had no idea why he’d been crying in the first place.  This wasn’t his room at home, and this wasn’t the ball he’d been going to.  No idea where he was – but sitting there, he heard soft footsteps approach him, passing with a swish of cocktail dresses and quiet voices chatting as two beautiful women walked past, not noticing him at all.

He watched them go on down the corridor, all gossamer and softness.  To Toki they seemed to glow in the dim lights, something beyond him, and there was an impossible silver string that looped from them and around him, or that’s how it felt, drawing him to his feet as though out of his body.  He drifted after them at a distance, but they disappeared into the wall before him in a shaft of light; it was only when he reached their place that he realised they weren’t ghosts, but rather had entered an elevator.  When his fingers hit the button to call it, they felt far away, like he was dreaming.  He wasn’t sure if he was or not, but it felt good to be getting some rest for once.

The elevator opened before him in a maw of light, and he stepped into it, hypnotised, the pink skirts floating around his legs.  He wasn’t sure where the women had gone, but – drawn by an unseen force – he hit up instinctively, to the very top floor, the number glittering as it lit.  Some great, thick knot curled up inside him as the lift climbed the floors, his reflection gazing wild-eyed at him in the mirrors that lined the elevator.  That girl was not him, that girl was beautiful.  Toki was just an idiot.

The reflection opened in front of him to a dark foyer, as though he was entering a house rather than a hotel room, decorated with a few couches, low tables, paintings imitations of the Swedish masters.  The light closed behind him and he stood alone for a moment, looking up at the doors before him.  He was aware, somehow, of bodies beyond the door; in the foyer he stepped out of his remaining shoe, the rug’s weave soft through the feet of his white stockings.  He placed both hands against the double doors, feeling the grain of the wood beneath his fingertips as he slid down to the doorknobs, and then opened them with a step forward into the moonlit room beyond.

There were bodies everywhere.  Living, writhing bodies, female bodies, draped and moaning over the low couches, the floor, the coffee tables, the mattress of a vast bed, moonlight streaming through the fine curtains in a blue haze and setting their soft flesh aglow in silver, beetle black, indigo.  At the crown of the bed, far from Toki and enthroned by pillows and girls, was Skwisgaar, posed nobly or as nobly as one could be while receiving a slow double blowjob and with a guitar cradled in one’s arms.  To Toki, though, the Swede’s cold gaze locking him in place, he looked like a king.

“Finally, you joins us.”  Skwisgaar’s voice came slow and bored, curling out into the night air, warm with bodies, and Toki found his own voice still at the bottom of his throat, cowering.  He couldn’t coax it up to speak, only stare dumbly at Skwisgaar’s throne.  He drifted a few steps closer to the bed, doe-eyed, and floated there with a dozen dark eyes upon him from the women around them.

“I ams passing you... asleeps in the halls.  Ams yous... dreamings of me?”  Toki hadn’t been dreaming at all, only stuck in a hole – even as he stood there, swaying, he could feel it around his feet, sucking him down.  His body felt soft and warm under Skwisgaar’s gaze, like a liquid, and he stared back mutely, the girls’ ministrations on his friend barely registering in his clouded mind.  He was just glad Skwisgaar had been cheered up.

The lead guitarist tilted his head in a cascade of silver blonde, sliding his fingers down the neck of his guitar. 

“What’s wrong?  You ams shy now?   You amsn’t shy of Pickle!” he sneered, and Toki’s gaze darted away, a slow, thick guilt rising from the hole to pull him deeper.  He raised his hands to his breast, holding them over his heart as his dark hair fell across his face, and Skwisgaar snorted from the bed.

“No, you feels guilty?  Ams you feel guilty for, mm, being in this party?”  The derision in Skwisgaar’s voice made Toki glance up again with a pang of insult, but he raised his eyes to see Skwisgaar smiling instead.  Mocking, sure, but weirdly welcoming, with a silver leash reaching out to Toki once again.  “Little Wartooth, you knows better than this.  There ams no things as religions... God don’ts cares for you.  You ams slut and a liars... and I knows you knows better than that... religions, bullshit.”

Toki shook his head, but the movement sent the room swimming, Skwisgaar’s nude, princelike figure rippling before him.

“No?  Ja.  I ams my own god.”  He leaned back on his throne of pillows, luxuriating under the fingers and lips of the women around him.  “You ams religious, amn’t you, Frøya?  Don’t you thinks Jesus look likes me?”

Toki had reached the end of the bed now.  Gazing through Skwisgaar, he thought of the icons from his childhood.  Toki had always thought that Jesus looked like himself, blue-eyed and persecuted, but he said nothing.  Skwisgaar seemed to take that as a sign, beckoned lazily.  “You can bes your own god too alsos... lives the dream, if you wants to.”

Toki sighed, and nudged his sleeve off his shoulder.

 

**BASEMENT**

* * *

 

Knubbler had lead them on a fucking merry chase, an excruciating trek down the fire stairs into the foundations of the hotel.  In the musty stink of dust and damp they had come to a blank door, armed with a heavy lock but strangely left ajar tonight.  Knubbler had led them inside without hesitation, flicking on a bright fluorescent light that buzzed and hummed above them as he led through yet another dank wood door, the lock left auspiciously open.   Suspiciously even.  Murderface seemed to rile by Pickles’ side at that, but he was too sedated to care.

This further room was already brightly lit, with a dozen small monitors set up on a desk by two rolling office chairs.  Oh yes!  It was an office!  Pickles dropped down in one of the chairs to such relief, spinning slowly as he scanned the desk.  There were keys... a half-finished box of glazed donuts.  Pickles grabbed one out of the box and stuffed it crudely in his mouth, giving a pleasured moan as he shoved it into his maw.  Murderface peered over his shoulder as Knubbler took the other chair, squinting at the screens.

“This is the hotel!” he declared, and Knubbler snickered at the fancy.

“That’s right.  This is the security station... I requested a little privacy?  Hmm, so it’s ours tonight,” he explained, and Pickles chewed slowly on the donut as his eyes widened at the sweet on his tongue and the jumpy images on the screen.  He thrust a sugary finger at the screen closest to him.

“That’s the ballroom!  And that – what the fuck’s going on here?” he said, stabbing his finger against one of the other screens.  The dim picture seemed to writhe, and Knubbler sneered lasciviously by his side.

“It’sch the orgy!  Oh man, it’sch Schkwischgaar’sch orgy!” groaned Murderface over their shoulders, leering close at the picture.

“Yeess... I was just thinking, you could spot your girl using the cameras, you know?” Knubbler artfully dodged the obvious questions about his intentions with the security system, gesturing foppishly at the screens as the other two craned closer.  Pickles, ever obvious, blinked sluggishly at the blurry shapes on the camera.  One in particular, pale-backed, was blatant to him.

That was unmistakably Toki’s silhouette, cut out in white on the poor video feed.  He had shed the dress - if Pickles squinted he could see the faintest of faint discoloured pixels marking out the Norwegian’s grisly scars, criss-crossed on his back.  When Pickles thought back to the blurry night of their tryst, he couldn’t even remember seeing them - like Toki had been careful to hide them, always front or side on from him.  Weird, but he guessed he couldn’t blame the guy.  If he was that disfigured, he’d do the same.

And then again, he’d been too drunk, too distracted, to notice anyway.  Too fucked to even notice he was going down on an old friend.  Christ, he didn’t care for himself but it felt like he’d done Toki wrong by it.  Egging him on in the bathrooms later was definitely a bad move by him.  And when it came to Toki - one couldn’t help but feel there was a vengeful god standing behind him somehow, biding its time as he absorbed the shock of death and betrayal to gather its power, waiting to orchestrate devastating justice on those who had wronged him.  Pickles hoped not to be around when it happened, if only to avoid his own inevitable share of punishment.  But god, if he’d been innocent, he would definitely have been there with a beanbag and popcorn waiting for the fallout.  Bound to be a good night out.

Another pale, masculine blob on the screen was probably Skwisgaar.  It was his party after all.  Pickles smeared glazed sugar from one figure to another, his button nose nearly touching the fuzzy screen, static nipping at the hairs of his moustache as he drew close.  If he could see Toki’s scars, that meant he’d lost the dress.  Which, well, was fair enough.  It was awkward being in close quarters with his bandmates in a sexual situation but Pickles was game to make concessions if it meant getting his hands on/in a plethora of beautiful and talented young ladies.  If it weren’t for fucking Knubbler and Froghurt, he’d be banging on that hotel door himself.

Wait.  They were the same person.  Froyo and Toki, that was.  Fuck this drug, swear on the Goat.  His mind cruised lazily back to Skwisgaar’s words at the rollerdrome, speaking uncomfortably of his disquieting fantasies towards Froya.  Toki.  Same thing.  Do you think it was because she was Toki or because she replaced Toki?  Or just something about brunettes?  Now this was coming dangerously close to caring, and worse, about Skwisgaar’s sex life.  Pickles abandoned the thought to the hole, watching it drop away into the void as he sat back in the office chair and swallowed the last of the donut in a stiff gulp.

“Well, shit,” he blurted, an awkward chuckle gulping out after, and the other two tore away from the screen to look at him.

“What’s schhit?” asked Murderface, reaching for one of the abandoned donuts, and Pickles pointed at the screen weakly from where he sat, the hole climbing back onto his lap and up through his limbs.

“That.  That’s Toki, dude.  That’s… that’s Toki.  And Skiwsgaar… he don’t know!  Aw, dude, this is fucked up.” He sat back to watch the show, snagging the last remaining donut for himself.  Murderface peered closer, his stubby nose almost touching the screen.

“Where?  No, that’sch Froya!  Hey!”  But before he could get excited, Pickles interrupted, spraying sugar as he crammed the remainder of the donut into his mouth.

“Toki _is_ Froyo, remember, douchebag?”  Pickles managed two whole chews of the pastry before [he realised](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOy6hqzfsAs) why the other two had suddenly fallen silent, sitting bolt upright.  The look of horror on Murderface’s mug would hang in the air for weeks after they left.

“Ohhh... oh, fuck.” Pickles swallowed his mouthful.  “I wasn’t s'posed to tell you that.”

Murderface drew a deep breath and turned dramatically away, taking a moment to collect himself before bellowing and throwing himself fist-first at the wall in fury.  He crumpled at its base, gibbering to himself as Pickles turned slowly on his chair to Knubbler.  The producer was thinking about it, but conceded with a shrug, “Oh, yeah.  I knew it all along.”

“Welp.”  Pickles winced as Murderface wailed behind them.  “Aw, shut up, ya big baby.  It’s just some fuckin magic shit, Charlie says they’ll fix it up in no time.”

Another wail.  Knubbler turned on his chair to poke the prone Murderface with a pointed white loafer.  “He’s in shock.”

“Whatever.”  Pickles craned closer to the screen, trying to make out the blurry figures.  “I’m just sayin, you know.  Skwisgaar don’t have a clue.  I mean, shouldn’t one of us go and... like...”

He trailed off a second, sucking the donut from between his teeth.  “Um, you know... stop them?”

“You mean they...?”  Knubbler span back to him, pursing his lips for a second, and then:  “Naaah.  They’re all the way on the top floor – there’s no way we could get there in time.  And anyway... they’ve had it coming for years now.  Erotic tension, you know.  Maybe they’ll get it out of their system.”

“Yeah.  Oh well.”  A moment of silence, only broken by Murderface’s whimpers, passed between them as they sat back to enjoy the show before the drummer winced again, this time at what he saw onscreen.  “Oooh, shit!  That’s gotta hurt...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> scorecard:  
> Nathan - knows, writing angry emails  
> Pickles - knows, having a very questionable video session with Knubbler  
> Murderface - knows, traumatised  
> Skwisgaar - oblivious, and way too close to get away with that  
> Toki - ????????????????!!!!!!!??????!!!!!!??????!!!!?


	15. KVIKKSØLV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no hardcore skwistok! sorry. the scene was too dodge! skwisgaar respects ladies who can't consent.

**PENTHOUSE SUITE**

* * *

 

Toki woke from the dream to his eyelids like lead, sinking him heavy into the plush mattress and the cushion he had under his head, his arms slung around it like a mate.  It was not Mordhaus – too much light for that, filtering through gauzy curtains, and he could hear Skwisgaar playing guitar close by, the empty tapping on the strings, the sense of another body nearby.  He could have fallen straight to sleep again, safe here, but his dream world remained violent.  There was no sanctuary within.

He had dreamed that Skwisgaar was the sun and he the moon, riding chariots through the heavens pulled by vast, glittering comets that galloped in turns through the sky.  Behind them and in close pursuit were wolves, or rather the idea of wolves, celestial mouths that opened on the stars and snapped closed to ruffle the tunic on Toki’s back.

Those sneering maws had drawn closer and closer until they’d ripped into the throats of their horses, tearing them out of the sky, and then set upon the men.  He remembered cowering under the wreck of his chariot, the splintered wood piercing his leather tunic, before the teeth found his cowardly body with laceration – razors, whips.  They were at his throat or belly, pulling out the cords of his intestines, and Skwisgaar’s body hit the wreckage over him as his own pursuers sunk their bloody heads into his chest.

With the sunset, ravens had circled, going after his raw eye – and the last thing Toki remembered was perishing under the broken wood of his chariot.  The sky looked like blood, the blood looked like mercury, a pool, a mirror, awash around his body from his opened stomach and throat.  Slowly, as the light had turned to the night’s blue, another metal had dripped down the side of the wreck, splashing warm onto his cheek and rolling into the pool like tears.  It was gold.  Molten gold in rivers over the wood, staining the mercury reflection around him.

And just like that it drained away from him, washing out as he opened his eyes to the soft morning light and a dull pain in his abdomen, a pillow in his arms, the wires of an unplugged guitar snapping back beneath Skwisgaar’s fingers.  The room smelt stale, like sweat and pussy and cool dawn with a strange metallic edge that had seeped out of his dream.  As he stirred, Skwisgaar stopped playing and touched him on the shoulder, but, he noted, only using the very tip of his finger, prodding harshly to wake him and reluctant to touch him properly.

“Toki.  Wake up.  We gots to go.”  Toki buried his face in the pillow, scrunching his eyes closed. 

“Fuck off Skwisgaar, you wake up,” he squeaked, and then it came to him, his name like a card falling from his friend’s tongue: “... Skwisgaar?”

“Ja, little Toki.”  The guitar had started up again, a lethargy in his voice.  As though he stayed up all night.  Toki couldn’t remember anything – casting his mind back, the last thing he could see clearly was the ballroom, all sparkling lights and champagne.  Then nothing.  A static with images, figures, moving within it, a touch here, a word there.  An empty corridor.  A bright light.  But nothing clear.  A wave of nausea washed up over him, but nothing spilled forth.

“You call me Toki,” he said, and turned his head to look at Skwisgaar.  He was dressed to the waist, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to Toki, cradling the guitar he played remorsefully.

“Ja.  You... am Toki.”  He sounded hungover.  Toki sat up, his body so heavy... and that dull pain ringing inside him like a tuning fork.

“Skwisgaar?” he tried again, and the Swede shuddered.

“Sorry.  I am havings... very bad dream.”

Toki frowned at his back as he hunched over his guitar, his hair washed over his shoulders in a white gold in the early light.  “This amsn’t dream, Skwisgaar,” he said gently, but the guitarist still wouldn’t look at him.  “I just have dream, the very extremely lots of blood.  Now I ams awake.  So this ams not dream, can’t be.”

There was a silence, then a sneered,  “I don’t care.  Get up.”  Toki waited for him to finish, and sure enough – as it always did – it came eventually.  “I just... wants to go home.”

“What happened?” he asked with a perfect innocence, and Skwisgaar nearly looked back – angled his head just a little, his fingers pausing on the chords.  Nothing – Toki pressed again, just gently: “Skwisgaar?”

“Uhh, don’ts remember,” said Skwisgaar, his voice husky and scalded, and he tried to wriggle out with that but when Toki didn’t jump in again, just left his words to hang in the air, he was forced to continue:  “You comes up and you and me, ams fucking arounds, then you has your head... funny.  Then I realise, I ams dreamsing... and you look like yous dead...  So I leave you alone.  Everyone left laters but I... think I should stay until you wakes up.”

He rubbed his eye with the back of his hand, pausing as Toki felt his heart flush with his friend’s kindness.  Sure, he seemed to think he was in a waking dream, but nonetheless: he stayed.

But Skwisgaar cast a vicious glance over his shoulder at the Norwegian.  Even in a dream, he was quick to sour.

“You ams not easy to take care of but Toki, you bleed all over the sheets!  Eugh!  You... disgusting,” he snarled, and Toki stared back at him vacantly.  He hadn’t been hurt, but now that Skwisgaar mentioned it, the scent of blood from his dream still leaked through into the dawn.  Skwisgaar just turned away in revulsion, curling a lip, and threw his attention aggressively into picking the empty strings under his fingers.

That... was not good.  Toki moved to cross the bed and comfort him, but froze at a very distinct feeling as his legs shifted over one another.  Blood had a consistency unlike anything else.  He knew it too well.  It slipped and stuck at the same time, not syrupy but abrasive like sand.  He could feel it on his thighs, smell it intensely now, a sickly scent like rotting flowers.  It took courage to look down.  Sometimes when they hurt you bad, you stopped feeling it.  You just looked down and into the cut, your knee split, your blood spilt over the ice on the front step - - -

But when he looked down, there was no cut.  Just blood.  A dull ache and blood smeared between his thighs and a small stain on the sheets.  Toki slipped his hand between his legs, returning it to thin blood on his fingers – too thin, to be from a cut.  And he could feel his heart thudding up his throat.  What had happened last night.  How had... had... Skwisgaar - - -

“Skwisgaar,” he squeaked, grey like the dawn, his bloody hand trembling before him, and Skwisgaar looked up just in time to see him faint right off the side of the bed.

“...Toki?  _Fuck!_ ”

 

**DETHPLANE**

* * *

 

“You know, I’d really like to leave an event sometime this week with all of you still conscious.”

Offdensen regarded the sorry line-up seated in the dethplane with a hidden sympathy.  It was pathetic, really.  Here they were, four grown men – Nathan with his fists curled in his lap, unsure of what feelings were balled up in himself, Murderface with dark rings under his eyes and a vicious tremor, Skwisgaar white with worry and cold with dissociation, and Pickles pale with nausea – and they still couldn’t handle one little period.  He’d dreaded this day, had thought he had more time, but magic was a bitch sometimes.

They’d segregated Toki to the opposite side.

The poor kid.  Offdensen wasn’t a soft touch but the scraped-bare look on Toki’s face when he’d come to was enough to crush his heart like a soda can.  It was a challenging job, yes.  It was a hard job, a brutal job, and so much of it had never been in the descriptions, but he’d never thought he’d have to explain menstruation in detail to a grown man.  Woman.  Whatever.  But he’d had to.  There was no one else.  And the hurt that radiated from the guy when he’d asked “ _Jomfruhinnen?_ ” had been excruciating, telling, another scar from a hysterically conservative upbringing.

“No.  Just a coincidence.”  Toki could still feel the weight of the manager’s comforting hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t worry.  It’s just a little blood.”

Now, segregated so, he was hunched over in his seat beneath a warm blanket, a hot water bottle clutched to his abdomen, trembling with a pained grimace smeared across his features.  The cramps had set in shortly after Offdensen had ushered him onto the plane, the others watching dumbly as Offdensen commanded klokateers after pillow, blanket, hot water bottle, pain killers, teddy bear.  He’d thought he’d caught Nathan saying something about, “weak,” but Toki had howled over him:  “ _YOU WANNA BE BLEEDING FROMS YOU DICK? HUH??_ ”

And the others had recoiled immediately.  "Uh, no - - -" grunted Nathan under his breath, but Toki's scream kept coming.

 _“CUZ I MAKE IT HAPPEN.  SEE HOW YOU LIKES IT.  Fucking ‘weak’, fucking, yous weak dildos..._ ”

“Shit, Toki, relax.  I just mean, it’s not very...”  Nathan petered off, his face screwed up in confusion.  In truth, he didn’t even know what it was.  He’d moved to attack it, his first point of defence, but Toki was a fierce and emotional opponent right now.

“ _NOT VERY WHAT??”_ The Norwegian’s tired eyes seared open with hysterical rage.

“I mean... mmhrmhmhmbrutal.”  Nathan shrugged, but Toki’s furious gaze bored a hole right through him.  “It’s not very brutal, Toki.  I mean, you look like a weird old lady in that blanket - - -”

“ _FUCK YOU AM BRUTAL.”_  Toki hugged the blanket closer, framing his face with the plush red wool.

“Being a girl ain’t brutal, Toki.”  If Nathan said it, that was the rule, Murderface and Skwisgaar nodding along at least, mumbling, “It ain’t brutal.”  “Amn’ts brutal, Toki.”

“Fuck yous all.  Being ladys am brutal.”

Offdensen nearly rolled his eyes back to his brain when Nathan looked up at him for guidance.  “Charles, back me up here.”

There was no helping it.  He’d have to express an opinion.

“On the contrary, Nathan, being a lady is very, uh, brutal,” he said, and frowned down at them.  “Pickles, you’re being unusually quiet.”

“Oh.”  The drummer had rested his glazed forehead in his hand, elbow propped on his knee, listening intently and staring into the middle distance.  “Sorry.  I was just - I’m not... dealin with the plane so well.  Um, it’s pretty brutal, Nate.  Y’know.  Shark – shark week and that shit.  Squeezin out kids.”

“And horses,” volunteered Toki.

“And horses.”  Pickles didn’t even register what he’d said.  “You know women invented beer?  That’s a fact.  In ancient Mesopotamia.”

“Huh.  How do you know that?”  For all his faults, Nathan was relatively easy to talk around if you knew his weaknesses.  Pickles did, but watching their exchange, Offdensen only saw the drummer disarming him, trying to find a way to be the cool dude in this conversation, the streetwise, the beta.  He had no intention of helping Toki.

“Dunno, I read it on a beer bottle once.”

“That’s pretty brutal.”  Nathan slumped, defeated, and Offdensen regarded them again.

“Okay, are we, uh, done now?” he hazarded and was met with blank stares.  “We touch down in Keflavík in just under an hour.  I’d like to finish this brief at some point before we land.”

“It’s so fuckin borin though!”  Pickles buried his head in his arms, curled over where he sat.

“If you paid attention, you’d realise it’s - - -” but he was cut off by a long, exhausted sound from Skwisgaar, like _uhhhhhhhgggggggghhhhh_.  “Skwisgaar, did you have something to say?”

“No.  Just that it’s boring.”

Offdensen let a beat fall between them as he mutely stared down the guitarist. 

“... well, it’s important.”  He straightened defensively, scanning the gathered band again.  “We touch down in Keflavík in under an hour.  From there we’re taking the Murdercycle to Heiðrúnstaður to meet Ms Ástríður.  That’s her farm.  It’s only a few minutes drive.”

Blank faces, muted groaning from Pickles.  Offdensen forged ahead.  “Ms Ástríður is a völva.  That means - - -”

“You keep sayin that word.”  Pickles didn’t even raise his head, staring through at his sneakers.  He’d had time to change back into his normal clothes after Murderface had dragged him out of the basement, but that was about it – as soon as the plane took off, his comedown nausea had kicked him hard in the stomach.  “That word... it just means part of a vadge, right.  Like a girl’s - -”  He struggled a moment, swallowing back the bile.  “ - - a girl’s pussy.”

“That’s vulva, Pickles.  Ms Ástríður is a völva.”

“That’s the same word.  It’s the same!  Oh, god...”

Offdensen frowned at the drummer, his face in his arms, as a thin line of vomit strung from his downturned face to the floor, the smell blossoming into the room around them.

“She’s a witch, Pickles.  Ms Ástríð is a witch.”

“Is she - - - ” started Nathan but Charles immediately cut him off.

“No, she is not ‘hot’.  Do not try to sleep with her.  I’m serious this time.”  The manager stared them all down, every plying face begging for any opportunity they could get.  “Just don’t.  All right?  You all ignored me last time and look what happened.  This time I mean it for real.  Ástríður is a witch and the magic she practices is seiðr.  There’s a lot of, uh, things involved in seiðr but one of those things is, uh, sex magic.  If she can change Toki from one sex to another, just _imagine_ what she could do if you gave her access to your bodies at their most vulnerable.  I cannot stress this enough.”

Blank gazes.

“Can you repeat what I just said to you?” he asked, and no one jumped at the opportunity.  Eventually, Murderface tilted his head with stubborn arrogance.

“We get it!  Don’t fuck the witch.”

“That’s right.  Don’t have sex with the witch.”  He paused again, turning his cold gaze back to Pickles, slowly vomiting onto the floor.  “And I mean anything sexual at all, okay?  No exceptions.  It all counts.  Do not flirt with Ástríður.  Do not proposition Ástríður.  Don’t even _look_ at her in a suggestive way.”

“Don’t fuck the witch,” echoed Toki distantly, nursing his hot water bottle.  “Please?  I hates this.”

The Norwegian’s wounded voice piping through the pukey, bloody air was the turning point.  Nathan’s fist came down on the upholstery – a decision had been made, as it always was, in defence of Toki.

“Okay, this is serious.  Don’t fuck the witch,” he snarled, “We have to get Toki back to being a dude, cuz this is fucking weird, and if that means jackin off more to keep from fucking some ugly bitch, so be it.  Let’s do this.”

That was it.  Murderface raised a fist, knife gleaming in his rough fingers, as he let forth a battlecry: “Fuck yesch!  Let’sch get Toki’sch dick back!” to cheers and echoes and quiet vomiting, and Offdensen couldn’t help a small smile from warming his face.

“Okay.  Good luck, guys.  That’s all.”


	16. MELK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goats goats goats  
> gettin close

**ICELAND**

* * *

 

“Fuck, I hate Iceland.”

Nathan gunned the Murdercycle down the road, the others sat in silence in their respective places and the rough asphalt stretching before them across a vast tundra plain.  In the far distance, the mountain Stapafel was cut out of the sky, distantly familiar to all of them – the place of their concert – but none more so than Toki, the churning grey above recalling his dream, huddling now against Offdensen in their shared sidecar.

No one else would touch him, but Offdensen, seeing that as usual the Norwegian, returned to his usual garb, had avoided wearing a jacket despite the cold, had mutely wrapped his shoulders tightly with the blanket and ushered him aboard, stepping in behind him.  Not a word had been uttered about the manager holding Toki’s shoulder in his gloved hand for balance as they took off, nor about Toki slowly curling against him, Offdensen choosing to ignore it as well.  There wasn’t much room in the sidecar.  Toki bringing his knees up a bit wasn’t going to hurt either of them.

Offdensen pointed, Nathan turned at a sharp fork in the road.  As the mountain loomed devastatingly, the skeleton of their stage clinging like an insect to its side far above, the landscape changed to rocky outcrops, scrubbed bare grass and lichen, and in the immediate distance spilled out like a black mirror, a still lake, a small gathering of white buildings huddled by its shore.  In the shadow of the mountain they looked like toys, but with just a gesture from Offdensen’s wrist, Nathan was certain of their course.

The witch’s farm was in the foothills.  They pulled up at the gate, a brief bickering exchange before Pickles snapped, dragged himself out of his sidecar and hauled it open, his arms shaking from the weight.  He followed them on foot up the muddy track to the farmhouse, swooning with his nausea and whinging at the black muck his sneakers sunk and slipped in.  But volcanic earth was rich in nutrients, and Ástríður’s pastoral endeavour, while small, appeared profitable.

“Is that a fucking goat?”  Having dismounted the Murdercycle and standing in the mud, Nathan glared accusingly into the middle distance.  He couldn’t   _see_ any goats but he could hear them, bleats carried on the changing wind, and damn, he could smell them.  

“Man.  I hate goats.”  He shuffled awkwardly, taking in the... shed (the... goat house?), the still lake, the wind whipping past them, flicking bare arms with its tongue.  Offdensen - his trouser legs wisely tucked into his boots, quicker than the band as they slipped and skidded on the slick mud - led on past him to the door of the white farmhouse, already opening for them to a warm hearth inside, a figure – five heads tilted down to take her in, except for Pickles who copped a stare right between the eyes before the tiny woman looked up at Offdensen.

“Ástríður Gunnarsdóttir,” said the manager, the faintest smile, borne of relief, tugging at his lips.  The woman beamed back up at him.

“Charles Offdensson.”  She mustn’t have stood taller than five foot, thick black hair that tangled down her back, cherubic face, big brown eyes.  Her white skin had an edge to it that suggested it’d get darker with age, but she couldn’t have been older that thirty.  Her outfit – a hippish, hemp and wool affair – did nothing to flatter nor age her either; just a garden variety new age bimbo, holed up in rural Iceland with a bunch of fucking goats.

Charles was already in, slinging off his coat onto a waiting hook as the others looked from one to another and Nathan made a noise like, _uhhhhhh_.  But he stepped in anyway, leading with his nose, the rest of the band timidly moving in past their manager as he unlooped his scarf and stripped the leather gloves from his hands with dignified grace.

“Uh, we’re very grateful that you’d welcome us into your home, Ástríður.  We can’t thank you enough,” he was saying as the others filed in.  The house was largely wood and stone, just one big room with a large bed built into the wall, iron cooking utensils hung around a large stone hearth, fire roaring.  There was a smell of linen, dried herbs and milk, a nurturing scent against the cold.  The woman just nodded,  shutting and bolting the heavy wood door behind them.

“It’s okay.  I am not getting many visitors,” she said with a modest shrug.  Toki was quickly settled on a low bench seat to curl around his hot water bottle.  The men had gathered in a circle around her fire, rubbing life into their joints as they stared around the wooden eaves above them, the dyed cloth and goat skin draped over the furniture, the intricate carvings in the beams lost in the dark beyond the light of the hearth.  But maybe it was Murderface who first lifted his head from the woman’s clumsily covered curves or the roaring hearth to the massive goat skull mounted over the fireplace, crowned by four huge, arching horns and dripping furred and feathered charms on red wool threads, the bassist jamming his shoulder into Skwisgaar’s rib as he stared up at it.

“Ouuuu!  Murderface!” complained the Swede, but soon saw what his friend was looking at.  “Oh... my god.”

His praise got the attention of the others, standing in awed silence until Toki chirped, “Ohhh, that ams a big sheep!”

“That ain’t no sheep.  That’s Satan, dude.”  Toki frowned at Pickles’ advice, huddling beneath his blanket, wincing away as the witch came to his shoulder.  He was significantly ill at ease around her, having been raised on stories of witches, how they commanded birds and flew on the north wind.  He was torn here – hoped what he’d been told was true, as it made him careful, and his father was a wise man, yet hoped, wished, keened it wasn’t, as some things were too horrible to entertain.  She looked wholesome, kind, followed their stares up with big dark eyes, sheeplike herself, and smiled warmly. 

“Ah, yes.  Tanngnjóstr.  He was good goat,” she said, her hand resting gently on Toki’s arm as he eyeballed it in fear.  His blood went cold as her fingers, soft and light, took his chin and turned his face to her, a tangle of laughing naked women rising into the night pouring through his mind.  “You’re Toki Wartooth, _já_?  Would you like something to drink?”

Offdensen’s calm hand came down between them, touching the witch’s forearm and warning her away.  She looked up at him, pausing a second, and then drew back without a word.  The rest of the band had other ideas, though.

“Hell yes he’d like a drink.  We all want a fuckin drink,” whinged Pickles, lowering himself on one of the hide-covered bench seats beside Skwisgaar and close to Toki, his arms wrapped around himself against the cold.  The witch just laughed.  Toki fancied it a cackle.

“Good, I am ready for you visit!  I prepare, uh, _hlýja mjólk_...” she gushed, stepping towards the hearth and a pot simmering on the black iron hotplate, but when only Toki and Skwisgaar looked up, corrected herself, “Uhh, hot milk?”

“Hot milk?”  Nathan grunted, taking a seat with the rest of them.  With Murderface planting himself on the bench beside the singer, only Offdensen was left standing, haunting over Toki’s shoulder like a big black bird.  He said nothing, just watched as Ástríður ladled the milk from the pot into mugs, passing them around to the gathered men – “Not even tea or nothin?” quipping Pickles, but taking it anyway – and even Offdensen took the one he was offered, regarding the others with guarded amusement as they sniffed and tasted it.  Toki especially stared into the white pane of his milk, warm in his hands and smelling like burned cinnamon.  Would that the witch poison or hex them with a potion?  But he was so cold ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑

Above him, Offdensen took a sip, and that was all the convincing Toki needed.  If Charles thought it was all right to drink, then it had to be all right... and it just tasted like regular milk to him.  The others were not so sure, Pickles surfacing with a half-white moustache and a funny look and Nathan sniffing the milk in his mug suspiciously.

“Is something wrong, Nathan?” asked the manager coolly, aware that turning down the witch’s hospitality could cost them dearly, and the singer grunted.

“Smells weird.”  He dipped a finger in, sniffing it, unaware of Toki’s eyes like saucers watching him across the room.  If Nathan thought it was wrong, then it had to be wrong.  Whatever authority Charles had, he didn’t always tell them everything.  Sometimes he lied.  Sometimes he fucked them over, just so it was easier.  It was always for the better to do what he said, but if Nathan knew, if Nathan could tell, if Nathan could keep them away from the witchcraft, then he ‑ ‑ ‑

“What is this?” asked Murderface, holding his mug at length, and Ástríður smiled vacantly back at him.

“Hot milk.”

“No, but… _what_ is this?”

“Hot milk… milk of which is hot.  I add… _hunang, kanill_ …” she tried, cut off with Offdensen clearing his throat.

“Honey and cinnamon, William.”  The bassist turned his accusatory gaze up at him.

“Well it tastes… funny.”

Offdensen gave a muted shrug, surreptitiously testing the milk with a brief sniff as he raised it for another sip.  It hit him as he swallowed, licking his top lip instinctively.  “It’s goat’s milk.”

All eyes turned to him.  “Goat… goat milk?” growled Nathan, sniffing it again, and Ástríður was staring, bemused, through them.

“ _Já_?  This is… goat farm?” she tried.  “I breeding goats.”

Toki looked up at the skull again, tuning out Pickles as he tried to inform them of how he once did this beauty treatment thing a girl got him to do and god like a whole bath of goat’s milk and like a facial heh heh _well_.  He wrapped his mouth around the words the manager had told them earlier, the name of this place, Heiðrúnstaður.  Heiðrúnstaður… Heidrún.  The she-goat.  Ohh - - -

“ _Ja_.  Sounds… unhygenics,” said Skwisgaar, and Murderface brought down his free fist on the wood of his seat, bringing Toki out of his day dream with a bang.

“Guysch!  Really?!  Concschentrate for juscht a schecond, jeschusch!   How are we gonna get Toki’sch dick back?” he demanded, and turned on Ástríður.  “You, you’re a witch.  We know you’re a witch, and we want nothing to do with you that’sch not fixing Toki.”

“Murderface!” squeaked Toki, cowering.  “You can’t speaks to her like that!  You gotta be nice to witches Murderface, you gotta - - - ”

“Schut _up_ , Toki.” 

“- - - or they… curses you…”

Ástríður looked from one man to the other, her gaunt features severe and cold as she sunk down before the fire, kneeling on the hearth before them.  “That is okay.  It is being okay.  You are wanting my help, I give it to you.”

“Right,” said Murderface triumphantly, and sipped his milk.

“I have prepare what you need to contact the Goddess.  You make offerings, then you request of Her to lift curse that Stapafell is place on you.  If She is pleased, you will be free,” the woman explained, the flames creeping high behind her. 

The men leaned forward to hear her, Pickles’ broad Midwest accent breaking the spell as he tried to whisper: “So what do we gotta do?”

“At sunset tomorrow, the full moon… we perform the drum song to summon and make offering of, uh…”  Ástríður looked up at Charles, searching for the words, “ _Mannfórnir?  Nei, vinur þinn er fórn…_ ” and the manager’s brow creased with worry.

“Human sacrifice?” he repeated back to her, and the woman didn’t even have time to respond before Pickles’ hand slapped down on Toki’s shoulder.

“Well.  It was nice knowin ya, dude.”

The witch looked from one to the other then up at their manager’s frown, confusion on her face.  “ _Nei_ , I mean - - - it appears to be but is not... something... a ritual, a fake, _táknræn, tákna_...?”

“Oh.  She says it’s symbolic.”  The relief pooled in Offdensen’s cool gaze, regarding the little woman crouched on the matt before them with quiet benevolence.  “ _Tákn manna fórn_?”

“ _Já_!” she crowed back, and Offdensen nodded. 

Pickles’ hand trailed down Toki’s back mindlessly.  “What then?” he asked, and the silence dragged out between them.  The witch seemed uncomfortable revealing her secrets, her shadow flickering and squirming against the firelight before them.

“It, ah, is...  ritual,” she explained, “In the Singing Cave, to enhance... your friend,” – she indicated to Toki, quivering in his boots – “Gives up little bit of her life... is enough for the goddess.  Another of you conducts the sacrifice.  You.”

She looked Pickles straight in the eye, freezing the drummer to the spot.  “You have already, you can again,” she said, then waved dismissively at the others.  “The rest is just drumming song.  You will pick it up easy.”

“Uh,” said Pickles, glancing up at Offdensen for guidance, but the manager’s face didn’t budge, blank in the firelight.  Pickles looked to Toki, who stared at him wide eyed and teeth-gritted, then at the others eyeing him weirdly before drawing close to his cursed friend’s ear. 

 _“Fuck, Toki, what did we do?_ ” he hissed through his teeth, though he knew quite well what she meant.  Toki stared back at him with a passive madness that did nothing to put him at ease.  The drummer drew back, aware that everyone was looking at them now, dragging a crude smile over his lips. 

“I mean, yeah, sure, whatever.  It’s fine.  I’m sure it’s fine.  Whatever you say,” he bluffed, grinning at the woman before them, and she barely seemed to notice.

“The question is, if you are curse,” she said ominously, pointing to Toki and nearly stopping his heart before she swung her hand around, “Or if you are all curse.  The Goddess is not easy satisfy.  There may be more to answer for than you thinking.”

Looking up at the huge goat skull nailed to the mantle, casting eerie shadows over the walls, Pickles could taste the blood like a split lip already as the woman explained the song to the others - something about a chant, fairly simple, in honour of the goddess, accompanied by a long, phallic looking staff that was leaning on the wall beside the fireplace.  Pickles took it in anxiously, wondering where it had been stuck in the past.  Sex magik, right?  Freaky stuff.

But a glimpse of salvation came to him then, as it so often did, with Nathan grunting from the other side of the room.  

“Uhh, I dunno this is a great idea, guys.  Like, how are we meant to do a drum song without our drummer?” the hulking singer asked, a white stripe of milk settled on his top lip like the worst moustache, and Pickles breathed a short sigh of relief.

“He’s right, lady.  You got a drummin song to do and you don’t want the drummer to do it?  It’s a waste, ya know, if you get me…”  

But she wasn’t buying any of it, just shrugging where she knelt.  “That is sacrifice… I willing to give.  If you want to be help, you do what I tell you.”

“Okay, all right!  Jesus.  All this talk of sacrifices has me on edge.  Can we not talk about it, just tell us what to do when we have to?”  Pickles sat back, holding the mug of milk in his lap, as Toki glared through him.

“Oh yeah, you’s so readies to sacrements me just second agos!  Not so funnies when it ams you, huh?” he snapped, and Pickles held up a settling hand.

“Toki, chill out. Bitchin will only make things worse.”

“You’s - - - ” Toki opened his mouth to reply, only to be silenced by the witch’s gaze as she stood, her shadow thrown long by the fire.

“Hush.  You need rest.”  She cast her dark eyes over the rest of the band, cowering in their seats.  “And yous – the full moon is tomorrow night.  What do I do with you...?”

The silence swallowed them with the crackle of the fire, pale, frightened eyes on the woman who stood dark before them.  Her face looked hungry – what did she intend for them?  With Offdensen’s warning racing through their minds, one by one the band turned to their manager for guidance, only to see him blink back to the present.  He had briefly tuned out.  Somehow that was more terrifying than anything else that had passed so far.

“Oh, uh... you could help out with the goats, if you like.  I mean, you are her guests,” he said eventually, put on the spot, and that seemed to please the witch, Ástríður clasping her hands together with a wide grin.  “It might do you good to get back to basics.  You know.  The simple life.  Heh.”

The mocking smirk on Offdensen’s face turned their stomachs as Ástríður clapped and chirped.  “Oh yes!  Yes, I teach you!  You handsome men milk Heidrún’s goats, _já!_ ”

Slowly, Nathan’s cold stare turned on Toki, drilling him to the spot as the singer snarled, “I… hate you.  So much.  Right now.”


	17. OFRE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's almost over
> 
> this one's a wild ride, you've been warned
> 
>  
> 
> [let's get you in the mood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j3H7iyZbOU)

**HEIÐRÚNSTAÐUR**

* * *

 

If you had asked Pickles what it would take to make him go down on his bandmate before that night, he would have nastily informed you he’d need a prince’s fortune before he even considered it, a guarantee the news would never escape, preferably complete anonymity, and a lifetime supply of mouthwash.  This was hyperbole on his part; common knowledge and early-web Snakes ‘N’ Barrels fan sites held that he was much cheaper than all that.  Such was the price of living and fucking and being harrowingly desperate in the public eye.

As it turned out, however, he was considerably cheaper even than the bottle of vodka and filthy magazine the last encounter had gotten him.  He had left the farmhouse with his arms crossed and a scowl, determined not to do any work if he could avoid it, the witch swanning along before them in her big fur lined rubber boots and hemp skirts hitched up around her waist, and everything was fine for a full five seconds looking at a pen full of stupid, stinking, fat-uddered goats filing into the barn and up onto these little stands, shoving their faces in the feed pans before them, then the witch had turned to him, pointed to a particularly large goat on a stand by his shoulder and said, “There she is for you, pails is there, you can show the other.  Am going to be instructing your lady on the kids, then I’m coming back to watch.”

“Wh- - -...” Pickles looked to the goat, which blew its nostrils out hot at him.  “Wait, I - what??”

The witch was already halfway to the door, hefting two large buckets of feed, Toki trailing at her heels.  “You a farm boy, you sound like farm boy.  Milk her.”

Pickles was seconds from turning to Offdensen when the witch indicated to him as well.  “You, come too.  I know of you city business men, you are knowing nothing about animal husbandry, you come with me, I have easy job.”

The manager’s eyes steeled, standing there, the only man in the shed with adequate boots and overcoat, but he only managed, “Uh - - - ” before she snapped, “Come!” at him and lead away.  Frowning at the drummer as he trailed after her, Charles just pulled a useless shrug.  “Uh, well, I tried.  Good luck, Pickles.”

Left alone with Skwisgaar, Murderface and Nathan and a shedful of goats, Pickles stared helplessly at the nanny goat by his shoulder as it lipped at one of his dreads.  Nathan drew a long, ugly smirk over his broad face: “Yeah, go on, farm boy.  Show us.”

And that was it.  The price for Pickles to go down on one of his bandmates in a private ritual was exactly the same as the price of being humiliated in front of all the others trying to fondle a goat’s tits for half an hour.  If it meant ending this stupid fucking experience, then god, he was prepared to hold his breath for a few minutes and bite carpet.  At least he knew how to do that.

“Uhhhhhhh... god.”

So there he was ten minutes later, anyway, sat on the stand with this goat’s tit in his hand.  No matter how Pickles tugged, nothing more than a drop came out.  He could feel the frustration building in his head like a knotted muscle, the ache, as the sagging fucking... nipple... nursed in his hand like a flaccid dick.  The big dumb faces of his bandmates stared over his shoulder expectantly, and as he failed once again he heard Skwisgaar sneer.

Pickles punched the pail off the stand with a clatter and a yell of rage, narrowly missing Murderface – squatted nearby to watch, a stick of hay in his lips - the goat yelling in echo as he spooked it. 

“Fuck!  Fuck it!  Fuck that stupid, fucking Björk bitch!  If you think it’s all so funny you fuckin do it!” he crowed, his face red with fury, and Skwisgaar rounded the stand to fetch the pail with a swanlike grace.

“Ja, I will.”  The Swede sat up beside the goat, replacing the pail and then tugging on the goat’s ear gently.  “Huhh, Pickle, ladies amses alls the same.  You just... treats them right, they gives you what you wants.”

“She’s a _goat,_ ” the drummer protested, but Skwisgaar ignored him, pulling the goat’s head close to whisper in her ear.

“When I sees you earlier, I swears... my heart... skips a bleat.”

“Fuck.”  Pickles covered his face with his hands, sat helplessly on the side of a pen.   Nathan leaned against it beside him, watching as Skwisgaar groped grotesquely at the goat’s udder with a zoned-out fascination.

“Is... is that how he does it, do you think?” he murmured to Pickles, and the drummer stared into space beside him.

“God, I hope not.”

The pail went flying again with a crash.

“Uuugh!  Ams useless!”  Skwisgaar stood up dramatically and flailed at the goat.  “Yous,  you don’ts knows a good thing when you sees one, you... sluts!”

“Schkwischgaar!”

“Skwisgaar, geeze!  Tone it down, dude.”

Murderface rose slowly as the Swede stormed to join Nathan and Pickles, a haughty air about him as his rough fingers scooped up the pail once more.  “You all schuck.  Let me schow you how a real man handlesch it,” he declared, and took his place beside the goat.  “We uschta vischit thisch farm thing when I was a kid!  I got thisch.”

“Right,” said Pickles wryly, perching higher on the pen.  “Go on then.”

“This’ll be good,” sneered Nathan, his arms crossed, and Murderface patted the goat on the neck.

“Ignore them, babe.  You’re a beautiful animal,” he said through his lisp, and the goat bleated gently as he took its teat in his hand.  “Now give daddy schome sugar.”

The barn held its breath, save for Pickles’ little sound of disgust.  Not a sound as Murderface bent in concentration, his fingers firmly squeezing the goat’s teat, and then, with the agile skill of a billion galloped basslines, undulated them down its length to a triumphant jet of milk squirted into the metal pail.

The yells of wonder, disbelief and terror from his bandmates could do nothing to drown the rush of triumph that flooded Murderface at that moment.  Fuck, he did it!  He’d actually done it!  He could hear Pickles crowing, “Holy shit Murderface!  Holy shit!”  Nathan bellowing in amazement!  Skwisgaar, bowing to his skill, “Moiderface!”

Yes, holy shit, Murderface!  He seized the other teat and began milking in earnest.  “Schee, no problem,” he declared, easily pumping away at the goat’s udder now.  “Asch if I’d have any trouble handlin a boob.”

And so it was.

**MEANWHILE**

* * *

 

Toki was hesitant about following the witch alone and dragged his heels in the mud – if it weren’t for Offdensen close behind, he’d have turned and run back with the others before they even got around the barn.  But the manager seemed nonplussed, bringing up the rear with a distant look on his face; Toki fancied he was watching the witch’s shapely behind sway beneath her skirts.  He could barely draw his attention away, so why would it be any different for the manager?  Sure, he’d never noticed Offdensen getting up to anything in particular, but perhaps they merely didn’t encounter his type often and, well, he was an American.  Red blooded and all.  It had to be there somewhere.

“You never mention she have childrens,” he said, put upon, and Offdensen seemed to blink out of his trance again.

“Huh?”

“Kids, she say we goings to look after her kids.  Geeze, Charlie, you’s just not with it today, ams you.”

Offdensen frowned at him like a bug had crawled up his nose, and then realised just as they were rounding the side of the barn.  “Oh, that’s... no, Toki, uh, ‘kid’ is another word for a ‑ ‑ ‑”

But he couldn’t even finish before Toki’s eyes dilated to maximum, the Norwegian breaking into a panicked run, cramps be damned, and throwing himself half-over the pen’s fence with a, “ _Oh, totally awesomes!_ ” of ecstatic joy nearly drowned in the shrill bleating of two dozen kid goats.

“‑ ‑ ‑ a baby goat.”

Toki was already face-down in the tiny creatures, giggling and cooing as their velvety lips brushed his face and fingers and made short work of his split ends.  Reaching his side, Offdensen overlooked with a satisfied hum, even reaching over the fence himself to pat one of the young goats, ruffling its floppy ears under his leather glove.  Quite cute, actually.

Suddenly Ástríð was at his elbow, offering up one of the feed buckets.

“Ah, see, I knew.  You are maternal sort,” she said, holding the handle towards him.  “You feed them.”  

Though slightly bemused, Offdensen took the feed bucket from her, Toki already hoisting himself over the fence with ease and scooping out a handful of the pellets to offer to the adorable bleating mass at his shins.  It was slightly more challenging for Charles to get over the fence, being somewhat concerned with grace as he was, but he managed it soon enough.

“Remember to keep your hand flat, Toki,” he warned, seeing the Norwegian engulfed again.  Toki had always gotten along very well with animals.  They were somehow soothed by his presence, the way he spoke to them, letting him pick them up or carry them around with an almost preternatural trust.  He had already hoisted a black kid into his arms, cradling it as he shovelled out pellets with his free hand for the other goats.  It was a shame, really, to see that kind of benevolent gift waste away in Toki’s hands, but, Offdensen thought, probably symptomatic of the same thing that - - -

But never mind.

Ástríð was sitting on the fence watching him.

“I am thinking, you are not suited to big business, really,” she remarked, and Charles was unpleasantly aware of the way her eyes followed him, the lilt in her voice, and from just a few feet away how Toki watched on and listened from amidst the bleats.  He was easy for people to forget – not so much for Charles.

“Uh…”  He hesitated, stooped to feed one of the goats out of the palm of his leather glove, “Well.  It’s a, uh, varied role, with Dethklok, but, uh, with respect, they are, presently, one of the biggest financial entities on the globe.  Bigger than – um, again with respect, bigger than this whole country.  And that’s been since I’ve been onboard.  I don’t like to boast, Ms Ástríður, and it’s certainly not – not my doing alone, God forbid, but I’d like to think that’s not, uh, an insignificant achievement.”

He kept Toki in the corner of his eye as he spoke to her, the guitarist sitting on the grass now with the goats climbing over him to his delight.  Charles was aware that, as innocent as he liked to make himself out as, the Norwegian could be quite conniving when given the chance and this, in a form, was Offdensen on the defensive.  Whether Toki knew what he was picking up was up for debate but he picked up on those weaknesses nonetheless, and his erratic emotions, while rendering him easy to manipulate, also meant you never knew what he’d do with the information, whether he’d note your distress and attempt to help or take some grudge and undercut you.  Frankly, he wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Mm.  You know it is nothing to be doing with you,” said Ástríð, smirking from the fence and pushing her chest towards them, and Charles glanced around when he heard Toki smother a triumphant scoff.  Oh, he knew.  The question was how did she?  Steeling himself, the manager levelled a stare at her. 

“I’m, uh, not going to speak about that with you, Ástríð,” he replied coldly, turning his attention back to the goats gathered around his shins, and the witch laughed at him.

“Such stoic!  If they fire you, you maybe consider the priesthood?” she mocked, and Offdensen just stared through her with a slight huff of acknowledgement, his face a tight frown, until he noticed Toki’s snickering amidst the bleats.

“Is there something, uh, funny about that to you, Toki?” he asked, and Toki jeered up at him from the fuzzy masses, high on dopamine and covered in goats.

“Yeah it’s funny!  Cuz you ams like a priest or, or monks or somethings, you never goes with ladies and you ams all hole up in you tower like some... some priest!”  He manhandled the black goat back into his arms, leaving the feed bucket spilt on the ground for the goats to swarm, tails waggling.  “Skwisgaar’s right, ha!  We ams like religions and yous ams priest!  Stupid.”

Offdensen fixed him with an icy stare, standing still in the shadow of the mountain.  “Skwisgaar, uh, said that, did he, huh?”

“Yeah!  I remembers now, when we was messing around with all them ladies.  Man, he ams _crazy!_ ”

The witch was still watching them closely, lowering her eyes at Offdensen.  The manager cleared his throat.  “I think that’s enough, Toki.”

“Whatevers!”  Toki cradled the goat roughly in his strong arms and somehow it just went with it, snuggled against his breasts.  He looked to the witch, smiling at her.  “I likes these kids guys!  They real cool guys!”

“They likes you too!” cooed Ástríð, sickly sweet, avoiding Charles’ gaze, “You should pick your favourite, we have a good game for him later!”

“Oh wowee!”

Turning away from them, Charles looked up at the mountain that towered above them, obscuring the clear spring sky.  It seemed to radiate a power of its own, to be telling him they shouldn’t be here.  He wasn’t one to mistrust his instincts, but...  “Maybe you should go and check on the others, Ástríð.  We’ll, uh, finish off here,” he said, and the woman dropped off the fence to her feet.

“Ah, forceful!  I like that,” she said with a wink, but turned to head off anyway.  “I will see you later, Charlie.”

“Uh, yeah...”  Charles watched her go, only to slowly come to his senses at the quiet broken only by soft bleating.  He looked back at Toki, who was looking at him with one eyebrow crooked, young goat sleeping in his arms.

“What happens to, ah, _dos not flirt with the witch.  Dos not positones the witch.  Dos nots evens_ \- - - ” he started to jeer nastily, but the manager just shot a cold glare at him.

“Toki.  Please.”  But his words were lost under the sheer brute of Toki’s eyeroll.

 

**LATER, THAT EVENING**

* * *

 

Pickles huffed furious clouds of vapour as he hobbled out into the cold, his arms crossed over his body as he tried to save his poor bare skin from the whipping wind.  Fuck this!  Fuck everyone!  All that work and he was still sleeping in the barn??

The witch had requested he stay behind after supper along with Toki and discuss the full moon ritual.  Well, he had, and well, it was exactly what he fucking thought it was.  There was no point though, sat there hunched on one of the hide-covered stools, no point in protesting.  Offdensen had hammered it home earlier that he was the only one who could do it.  If the witch said there was no other way to break the curse, get Toki fixed up, then there was no other way.  Pickles would rather die than be a woman for life.  So yeah, he’d do it.  He’d even put on some stupid costume and do it.  It was only, what, max ten minutes of his life.

“I just want you to know I’m not very happy with this, you know.  That’s – that’s all I wanna say,” he had snarled, glaring up through the firelight at the witch, standing over him and Toki, the Norwegian cowering and curled up on her cot bed to watch and listen into their discussion.  He’d had a small black goat snoozing by his side, stroked gently – the damn things got in everywhere, didn’t they?

“And like, don’t... they seem pretty fuckin, wilfully oblivious.  Just... leave them like that, okay?” he said, glancing at the door his bandmates had exited through, and the witch had nodded serenely.

“Sönghellir, the singing cave, you can only hear from the outside in.  Your secret is safe, but for what you’ve let out already,” she explained, and Pickles noticed Toki curl in on himself just that little bit more.  Pickles bit his knuckles anxiously.

“Okay, well... okay.  And I want some mouthwash or some Tic Tacs or whatever.”

“As you wish.”

And then he’d been informed he was still spending the night in the barn.  Toki had risen as though on some unspoken command, very creepy really, to guide him out.  And it would have been fine, Christ, it would have been fine, he would rather sleep in a goat barn with his pals than with fucking Sabrina and Toki on the rag, but just as Toki was closing the door on him, his haunted eyes peering from the warmth of the hearth, the Norwegian had whispered to him: “Hey, Pickle...”

“Toki?”  The drummer had leaned in, frightened for his bandmate, and Toki’s eyes had flashed with crooked glee.  “Guess what?”

“... wh...”

“I’m gonna fucks Björk.”  And with that, the bastard had slammed the door on him, leaving him out in the cold.

Pickles had given the door a swift kick, his anger popping in his head like a blood balloon, and then stalked out into the frozen yard to the barn, cursing Toki under his breath with every step.  He threw the door open when he reached it to a dozen complaining bleats and the whines of his bandmates, his snapping silhouette in the bright moon outside.

“Jesus, Pickles, close the fucking door!”

Pickles closed the door.  There were a bunch of camp beds set up for them in the middle walkway of the barn, warm with animal bodies, the scuffle of hooves in the darkness, the occasional bleat.  Pickles weaved around Nathan, barely crammed onto his bed, as he made his way to the empty place and crawled into the blankets.

“I hate Toki, I hate that sonuvabitch,” he snarled to Nathan, the huge man stirring next to him.  “Can’t we just leave him like this?  He’s not that bad for it.”

“Shut up, Pickles.  I’m tryna sleep.”

“It’s no fuckin fair dude.  He’s gonna fuck the witch!  He told me so.”

Nathan turned onto his front, raising his head to look at Pickles, his dark hair shadowing his face in the gloom.  “Well he can deal with whatever kinky bullshit she pulls then.  Now fucking go to sleep.”

“But Charlie said - - - ”

Another mound of blankets moved near him, and Offdensen’s measured voice sounded in the warm, animal air.  “I’m, uh, here also, you know.”

Pickles wondered if he slept in his suit.

“Uh, it’s nothin, man.  It’s nothin.”  Nathan glared at him in the dark, and Pickles shrugged and curled his lip, mouthing, _I ain’t no squealer_ at his friend.  Slowly he mimed cutting his own throat as Offdensen turned over again.

“Nothing.  Huh.” 

Pickles snorted softly in relief, and then craned closer to Nathan to whisper to him, the singer’s face already buried in a rolled up blanket again.  “I mean, it’d be fine if he didn’t fucking rub it in.”

“Uuuuhhhhg!” moaned Nathan.  “It doesn’t fucking matter!  Just go to sleep!”

Pickles was about to rebut when a scream interrupted him, ringing through the night and obviously from Toki’s tryst.  Pickles sat bolt upright in his bed.  “See!  I fuckin told you!  Fuck you Toki, fuck you!”

Another figure rose, this time Offdensen.  It was with small horror that Pickles realised the manager actually had been sleeping in his suit, albeit sans jacket and tie.  “Pickles?  What was that?” he snapped, scrambling for his glasses, and Pickles just rolled his eyes at him.

“Toki’s fuckin the witch.  He’s fuckin... showin off man, it’s drivin me up the fuckin wall!” he whinged, but Charles was already on his feet, boots on, and heading for the door.  Pickles watched him incredulously in the gloom.  “Dude.  You’re not gonna...”

“I just want to be sure.”  And like that, he was gone, the door closing on animal silence again.  The pause swelled between them until Skwisgaar made an unpleasant sound in the darkness.

“Uugh... creepy.”

“Yeah, I know, right.”  Pickles turned over on his bed, eyeing the Swede.  “Who’da thought ol’ Charlie had it in him.”

“Mm.”  A brief silence from Skwisgaar, then: “Do yous thinks... he listens to all of us, when we, mm, you knows...”

“Probably, dude.  Probably.”

“Shut up!  Go to sleep!” snarled Nathan, his bulk hulking beneath his blankets, and the other men quickly turned over to feign innocence.  In the empty night, another scream rang out.  Then nothing.

 

**FARMHOUSE**

* * *

 

The door was not locked.

Offdensen pushed it in easily, moving like the biting wind in with the draft, slamming it behind him.  The room was dark, the only light thrown from the hearth, the smell of blood in the still air.  He’d known as soon as he heard the scream that something was not right.  No time to bother with jacket and coat.

He peered around the dim room, taking in the butchered goat kid laid out before the hearth, entrails spilt onto the flagstones.  If he was lucky, that would be the only blood tonight.  But if not...

God, he’d been such a _fool_.

“Toki?” he called out, and a figure moved in the corner of his eye – sure enough it was Toki, his pale nude form curled in the corner of the witch’s bed and smeared with blood, big, terrified eyes fixed on Offdensen.  The manager lurched towards him, his steps stiff with relief, and the woman’s shriek had barely hit his ears when the cast iron pan hit the back of his head with a hollow sound.

Offdensen folded to the flagstones like a pack of cards.

Standing over him, the witch cricked her neck and spun the pan handle around in her hand, the goat blood runes on her bare torso glistening in the firelight.  “ _Það er að gætt af, þá_ ,” she hissed, battling for breath and grinning wickedly at Toki.  “ _Nú þú ert allur Hennar.”_

Whatever that goddess forsaken thing had been, she'd learned one thing in her years in the wilderness: there wasn't much that walked this earth that couldn't be handled with a solid blow from a cast iron pan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gotcha


	18. ETER

Charles’ head was still ringing when he opened his eyes on the hearth again, this time with the taste of blood from a bitten tongue held within his mouth by something bound around his face and his wrists tied tight behind his head to the bedpost as the hard stone radiated cold beneath him.  In the blur before him he could see her shape, smell blood and ether.  God damn it.  She was one of those gloaters.  If only more villains were interested in efficiency rather than this theatrical rubbish - well, they’d get a lot more done at least.

“Ástríður.”  His voice found the stale air in a croak, muffled by the rag tied around his face.  So the blow wasn’t enough.  She’d had to drug him too.  His vision blurred and swam in front of him, time all curled up on itself - who knew how long he’d been out?  Maybe he had failed them - no.  No.  She wouldn’t be gloating if they had already fallen.

There she was, fading in and out before him, her dark robes blurring with the shadows, dissolving into them.  Ether was one hell of a drug.  He wouldn’t even know it to smell if it weren’t for Pickles and Murderface slamming a rag across his face that one time and screaming “Punk’d!”  Hmm, yes, you could call it that, or you could call it assault, violation and a mild case of concussion.  Offdensen preferred not to pick a side.

But at least they hadn’t tied it around his face.

“Why are you doing this?” he croaked, struggling to lift his heavy head.  As Astridur drew close, he saw murder in her eyes.

“You - unnatural!” she hissed at him, “Nothing that dies should walk again!”

Offdensen just hung his head.  “Well, I - I didn’t choose this, Astrid…”

“But you take it gladly!”  With a graze of rough fabric against his bruised jaw, Ástríð had snatched the rag off his face, leaving him to drool bloody down his chin.  “You take it, you wear it as a crown and you bring your… _beast-daughters_ here to our sacred place to defile it!  My Goddess’ cradle Stapafell, run with streams of blood and shit!  She has been so pure since the wars end - now you come here to kick dirt in her face!”

“We meant no disrespect, Ms Ástríð.  We didn’t know,” Offdensen tried, but his gut was wrenched by the way his words slurred into one another, his vision doubling the woman before him.

“You knew!” she hissed, and snapped a sharp palm across his cheek.  Charles closed one eye to focus on her, giving a soft sniff through his raw nostrils, the guilt boiling deep in him.

“Okay.  Perhaps I knew.  I just… didn’t believe.  I am... only just coming to terms with all this.  We all are.”

It would have saved him, if the guilt was for her, for the state of her holy place.  But the only guilt he felt was for the band, now in grave trouble because of their combined naiveté.  He flexed his wrists against the rope, the fibres sawing into his skin.  The smell of blood was too close, a tightness on his cheeks and forehead – she’d definitely used it to paint on him, too.  Offdensen wrinkled his nose.  He could only hope it was goat blood.  He’d had quite enough of the boys’ body fluids for one week.

“It’s no redemption!  I get my revenge,” Ástríður announced, stabbing her chest with her thumb in a triumphant gesture.  “Your American dogs are stupid!  You don’t like blood?  You deliver most big blood ritual to our mountain, blood and shit and drums, you think we don’t give back in kind?  So _stupid_ , she enters your weakest, I could feel her inside you Norska dog – she don’t even know!”

“Yes, well, they don’t believe in – in goddesses,” mumbled Offdensen, seeing the room lurch.  He tried to work out what was written on his forehead from the tight feeling but he couldn’t make heads or tails of it like this, mingled with the slick of his sweat in the heat from the open fireplace.  “Uh... and Toki’s he.”

“She is as woman, she is she,” sneered the witch, and Offdensen liked her even less.

But she wasn’t done yet. 

“Now your Irish dog consume her blood, to our chant, to our night – with climax, the goddess will emerge and she will take vengeance!  She will take you all,” she declared with a sweeping gesture, and Offdensen’s mouth formed a tight line.

“Oh,” he said, and the fire and shadows swam in his eyes.  “I’ve never been, uh, fond of blood.”

“Get used to it,” said the witch, and turned on her heel, blurring out of his smeared vision.  It slowly occurred to Offdensen as he heard the door slam that she fully intended to just leave him here to rot, tied and powerless inhaling the blood and ether.  It would have been easy to succumb, to imagine this was his fault – and it was – and begin to mourn already, but he’d never really subscribed to that broken, sacrificial mentality.  There was only one way to ask for forgiveness, and that was to move with grace and humility and put right to the best of one’s capacity what had been wronged.

He gave it about five minutes, taking a deep breath of stale air now that the rag was moved from his face, and rolled his shoulders.  This was a challenging job.  This was a good job.  It was a job worth doing well.  He centred his back, released his breath in preparation, and strained on the rope around his wrists with all his power, constantly, his breaths long and measured and the line cutting into his skin as he twisted his wrists, until the first fibre snapped across the back of the bedpost...

 

  **STAPAFELL**

* * *

 

Looking down from the edge of the mountain, the spring tundra sprawled under the moonlight and shrouded in fog, you could almost say it was beautiful.  The blood had long since sunk into the earth, leaving the bare clay, the lichen scarred stone, underfoot.  Stretched around the side of the mountain was their half-dismantled stage, a skeletal blot of black metal clinging to the stone.  The band squinted up at the structure as they hiked up the narrow path.  It broke up the sky with an awful grid, dissolving into the fog as it groaned and creaked with the strong winds that buffeted it.  The little woman who led them up the slope, her hair whipped from beneath her furred hood as she wove between the standing stones, didn’t seem to see it, didn’t notice them distracted by the tremendous structure like a carcass hanging off her mountain.  Just led on, into the dark, the fog lit silver by the full moon.

They had to be almost there.  Pickles brought up the rear, radiating a thick anxiety as he huffed and panted, leaning on the staff he’d been handed like a crutch.  It was a strange shape, bulbous at the top with a carved cage - Ástríð had said it was used for weaving, but he couldn’t imagine what type.  She’d also awarded him, and only him, a hooded cloak similar to hers, citing his small size as a risk of hypothermia up on the cold mountain top.  He could have spat at her.  He’d been on this mountain before and come out none the worse.  But whatever, at least it was warm.

Toki was not with them and that was the cause of some concern, though none of them would admit it.  He’d been missing since last night.  Initially, milking goats again, they’d bitterly assumed he’d slept in after the full pelt lesbian workout he’d undoubtedly gotten the night before, but as the day drew on and Ástríð got more intense with their preparations, it became clear this was not the case.  They hadn’t seen the inside of Ástríð's house since the previous day, and besides, there were some weird fucking things involved in this ritual - like a bucket of blood she emerged with, presumably, hopefully, from a goat; Pickles was reasonably certain no womb, enchanted or not, could pump out that much blood in such a short period of time.  She’d used the blood to draw symbols on them, like a circle flanked by two crescent moons on each man’s forehead.  Pickles was sure he’d seen that symbol somewhere else, in some hippy Viking metal chick’s room around the time of _Thunder Horse_ , but for the life of him he couldn’t think what it was.

The moon was high at the crest of the mountain when they reached the mouth of the cave.  They stopped on the jagged rocks, the fog resting low around their feet, and Ástríð pointed Pickles towards the cave.  “You, go.  We stay here for the song.”

“On my own?” Pickles wheeked, looking down into the dark maw of the cave, but Ástríð merely nodded.

“She will be waiting for you.”

“Oh…!”  Pickles' face went clear at the realisation.  “Oh, no, that’s, uh, probably good then, that I go alone, yeah.  Okay.  Let’s get this over with.”  He took a deep breath, swallowed his pride in the questioning eyes of the others, and went to the cave.

The initial climb down was a challenge, large, jagged volcanic rocks he climbed bodily in the pitch dark, his Vans skidding on the black stone until he felt the slope even out to a circular tunnel, the bottom filled with sand.  Even when he pushed back the hood he could see nothing except the cut-out of sky above where he’d come through, but he could feel the still air, hear his breath echo off the cave wall.  Turning cautiously to look up again, he called out to the waiting party: “Okay, I’m down here now!” and his voice echoed a million times around him in beautiful pitches, so much so that it gave him cause to stand a moment just to listen.

“Yeah, Pickle!” came a million distant Skwisgaars from the mouth of the cave, and then, “Go get Toki’s dick back!”

_dick back_

_dick back_

_dick back…_

“I’ll try,” muttered Pickles, but they didn’t seem to hear him.  He moved forward, dragging his sneakers through the sand, putting the staff to touch the side wall and following the tunnel - though even just clicking his tongue nervously he could hear the way forward, the clicks ricocheting around him from the broad stone walls of the lava tunnel.

“Toki?” he tried, but there was no reply besides his own voice - nothing from outside, and nothing from within.  Anxious rather than cold, he put his arms around himself under the cloak, drawing slowly on through the dark.  It came faintly, then; the unmistakeable sound of bad percussion - just one drum, accompanied by the poorly timed beats of his bandmates drumming their thighs or clapping along to the beat.  Slowly plodding through the sand, squinting for a faint light he saw in the distance of the cave, he heard Nathan’s rough voice join the beat, his echoed words accompanying him in chorus:

_We call upon the goddess Freyja, chooser of the slain, mother of magick, to bring upon us the seidhr that you shared with Odin.  Uhh, um, Lady of many names, we dedicate this, uhh, song of love to thee that you would join us._

Pickles rolled his eyes at the hesitance in Nathan’s voice.  The guy had never sung a love song in his life.  If it weren’t for Dethklok’s massive success, the drummer would have scoffed.  Love songs got you all the pussy.  In this case, mind you, maybe too much.

There was a chant, upheld by the others.  Pickles could see the light was a hole in the cave’s ceiling, the moonlight streaming down onto the black sand.

_Freyja Freyja Vanadís.  Freyja Freyja Vanadís.  Freyja Freyja Vanadís.  Freyja Freyja Vanadís._

They sounded like they were at gunpoint.  Pickles could have felt sorry for him if he didn’t have the worse job out of the two of them.  His eyes were pretty shit in the dark, but as he neared the column of light he could see something white lying on the black sand beneath it.  He hesitated a moment, then thought better of it, his sneakers skidding on the sand as he ran towards it.  “Toki!”  And sure enough it was.

Shoved into some ridiculous white smock far too short for his body, his bare thighs pale with the cold and with his hands tied behind his back and a cloth around his face, Toki lay on the black sand in the silver moonlight, lost in some beautiful sleep.  Something terrible had been done to him, from the strong chemical smell that came off his body; Pickles could feel his heart racing as he dropped to his knees beside his friend, letting the staff fall into the sand as he reached for Toki’s shoulders and shook them, “Toki!  Toki?  Wake up, dude!”

Toki opened his eyes, one then the other, struggling to focus on the man above him.

“Shit, what’s she done to you?”  Pickles’ heart sank with guilt as he untied the gag from Toki’s face, the Norwegian gasping for the cold cave air as he yanked it away.  Pickles raised it with some caution to his own face to try and catch the scent, and it was definitely ether.  He stared down at Toki, the younger man’s eyes crossing below him.  “Ether, Toki?  _Ether?_   Dude, you are having the _shittest_ week.”

Toki made a weird sound and Pickles moved to untie his wrists.  He looked down at the man, holding Toki’s shoulders, as he considered that the whole scene had been laid out for him – as a kind of offering, white dress, chanting, gagged and bound except for his feet.  Poor Toki was so fucked up he didn’t even notice.

 _Freyja Freyja Vanadís_ , went the distant voices, with Skwisgaar's soothing, rich voices speaking over them:   _Gefn._

_Freyja Freyja Vanadís.  Mardöll._

_Freyja Freyja Vanadís.  Thrungva._

“Oh, Toki,” mumbled Pickles as Toki made another sound that might have been his name, and then tried to pull him up to sitting.  Toki, in full, uncensored Toki nature, instead slung his arms around the drummer, pulling him into a tight embrace as he pushed his face into Pickles’ dreads and quivered.  Toki was stronger than he knew, squashing Pickles’ small form against him with clumsy, drugged muscles, but the drummer couldn’t seem to hold it against him.

“I’m sorry, dude,” murmured Pickles, and Toki rubbed his cheek against the drummer’s face and the fur border of his cloak as Pickles held him uselessly.  The chanting went on around them, the moon peeking through the hole above as the light grew brighter on their pale bodies.  He felt a horrible pressure, performance anxiety, as he realised the point of turning back from this was just about gone.  Carefully, he took Toki’s face in his hands, looking in his haunted, unfocused eyes, and thought he already knew the answer for what he was about to ask.

“Toki, are you sure?” he asked anyway.  Toki was limp in his hands, hunched over before him, and gave him a bashful, ether drunk smile.

“I’ms sorrys, Pickle...”

“Nah, dude, it’s okay.  I’m okay.  It’s only fair, right?”  Pickles tried to see the light in it.  “But no tellin no one, you got it?”

“Yeah,” said Toki, swooning as he ran his fingers through the fur on Pickles’ hood.

“And once we’re done, we’re even.  I don’t owe you shit.  Okay?”  Pickles squeezed Toki’s cheeks until the guitarist focused on him, his smile slipping wider.

“Crossings my heart and hopes to dies, Pickle.”

“Good on you, kid.”  Pickles released Toki and retrieved the ether rag, holding it to his face as he took a deep drag of it, the fumes burning down his nostrils.  There was no fucking way he was doing this sober, not when Toki was having such a good time.  As he inhaled, his head swimming with the moonlight, Toki collapsed against him again, burying his face in his hair and rubbing against his cheek and beard.  The deeper he breathed, the better Toki’s soft skin felt against his, silken and in turns cold and warm.

_Freyja Freyja Vanadís. Skjálf._

_Freyja Freyja Vanadís. Valfreyja._

He dropped the rag, resting his cheek against Toki’s as his friend embraced him on the sand, the chant reverberating around them, through them, freezing him for a moment.  He could feel Toki’s breath on his neck, the warmth of his mouth, and then could resist no longer, turning his face to meet Toki’s lips in a deep, numb kiss that ran through his nerves like cold water.  After all, it didn’t count if Toki had a pussy.

Toki pushed their clumsy kiss slower and harder as Pickles let his hands roam, finding Toki’s bare thighs cold under his stick-rough fingers.  He could feel himself slipping down Toki’s slender body, his mouth on the younger man’s throat, as Toki melted into the cool black sand under his touches, a firm hand pawing for his breast or groping for his ass under the smock, fingers grazing over his slit and exploring the warm folds, plunging one then two into his wet cunt.  Pickles barely noticed how far he’d slipped until he was almost at crotch height, Toki slumped back to almost lying on the sand with Pickles between his legs.  The drummer propped himself up a moment, looking down Toki’s body.  This was it, then.

“Just, uh, relax, Toki – think about sexy girls or somethin,” he advised uselessly, and lifted the hem of Toki’s skirt, recoiling only slightly when he noticed the blood smeared on his left hand where he’d fingered him.  Toki collapsed back onto the sand, his hands on his body, his eyes shut or staring up at the full moon climbing above them.

His pussy had been shaved, something Pickles had managed not to notice during their drunken tryst, and was only just growing back a short fuzz.  Now he had context, he wondered if Charles had done that too.  Jesus, what a weirdo.  It only just touched his addled brain to wonder where he’d gotten to, if Toki had ended up drugged and bound in a cave.  But Charles usually sorted himself out.  He was probably fine.  Probably.  A downside of the shave was that he could see the blood, black under the moonlight.  He could definitely smell it, the typical iron smell of blood mingled with a weird sweetness that menstrual blood had.  Yes, he had been there before.  When you’d had as many groupies as Pickles had, at a certain point you branched out into the weirder parts of the human psyche – just to keep it fresh.

Pickles licked his lips, and then licked Toki, his tongue held broad and flat as he tasted the warm fluids on his friend, the clear tangy sweet of pussy juice with the sickly sweet of blood.  And it was fine.  Not the way he’d choose to spend his evening, but... fine.  Toki made a little sound as he grazed over him, and Pickles tried to block it out.  It was fine.  God, it was fine.  Just pals helping pals out.  You know?  He’d fucked uglier chicks for Nathan before.

Gently, nuzzling Toki’s short fuzz, Pickles parted his pussy with his fingers, running his thumb over the warm, damp folds.  There was a lot of blood going on down here.  In Pickles’ experience, the blood usually abated once a girl was turned on enough, but jesus, there was a lot going on here.  In the clarity of the ether and the moonlight, he quickly found and rubbed his thumb against the firming bead of Toki’s clit, causing him to squirm around Pickles at the feeling.

“You really lucked out, Toki,” he mumbled, but he wasn’t sure if Toki even heard him.  The poor dude’s clit was tiny.  No wonder he’d been struggling.  If Pickles didn’t know better he’d have wondered if it reflected on his usual equipment.  But the technique was totally different anyway, and nothing you saw in porn could prepare you to actually be a good lover.  Not even fucking all those groupies could do it; they were too ready to do what you told them.  Pickles had only learned through messing with a dominatrix in his experimental phase, a woman who had grabbed his hair and forced him down and told him exactly what to do.  She’d had fucking rings in her clit.  He wasn’t sure if it had been a good experience, but it certainly helped him out when he’d actually wanted a girl with higher standards than ‘drunk krillionaire’.

Pickles ran his lip up Toki’s cunt, teasing his clit with the tip of his tongue to another squirm that gave him cause to grab the younger man’s thighs, holding him still.  Looking up Toki’s body, he could see his chest rise and fall with heavy breaths as he touched his own breasts, otherwise ignoring Pickles.  Good, that’s how it should be.  Pickles set in further, gently lapping the folds of Toki’s cunt and tasting blood, his teeth grazing his hard clit as he taunted him. 

“Shit, hold still, Toki,” he scolded, and Toki gave one final wiggle before Pickles saw a nod and he tried hard to stop moving.  He lifted Toki’s freezing legs onto his elbows to free his hands, held up and apart, as he parted his pussy for easier access.  He set in deep then, wrapping his lips around Toki’s clit as he slid a finger into his hot cunt, and was rewarded by Toki’s useless mewl and rocked hips.  See – you did what you were told, you got what you wanted, right Toki?

 _Freyja Freyja Vanadís. Sýr,_ went the chant, and Ástríð's sharp voice raised in a wordless war cry beneath.

_Freyja Freyja Vanadís. Hörn._

The drummer started in earnest then, suckling and rubbing Toki’s clit with his lips and tongue, two fingers deep inside him as Toki’s thighs quivered around his neck.  With a particularly long and hard stroke of his tongue, a large hand sunk into his dreads, tugging them gently – Pickles glanced up enough to see Toki wasn’t asking him to stop, rather had his other hand over his eyes, arched back against him on the black sand, the smock hiked up around his armpits and his nipples tight with his cold and arousal.  God, it was good to look at, a hardbody stomach like that crowned with cute little nips, and Pickles kicked himself for thinking so.  Mind on the task at hand.  He had to be close.

He’d barely thought it, sucking and deep rubbing the hard bead of Toki’s clit, when he reached the first, “Oh!”  Pickles kept up what he was doing, slowly intensifying the pressure and the sluggish stroke of his fingers  in Toki’s cunt, but they kept coming: “Oh.  Oh!  Oh, oh, _oh_...”

It almost made him laugh, the chuckle vibrating through his mouth to Toki’s pubic bone as he fought back his smile, drawing his lips tight, and then Toki thrust against him, his hand shoving Pickles’ face straight into his crotch with a “Oh, fuck shit, Pickle!” and his other hand scraped across his own bare belly, leaving red marks that glowed in the blue moonlight.  Pickles suffocated for a second in the blood and fur, a rush of clean juice flooding onto his lips as Toki came, before he realised that everything was suddenly bleached out.  A bright light.  Pickles raised his head, seeing first the livid scratches then Toki’s eyes lit up white, and then the ghostly figure forming out of the fog and moonlight before him.

“Holy _shit_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chant based on Rosmarinus Stehlik's Aradias Chant!
> 
> One more to go!


	19. SLUTT

**SÖNGHELLIR CAVE MOUTH**

* * *

 

They were mid-handclap when Skwisgaar leaned up to Murderface’s ear, making the bassist shiver with - with the cold.  Yeah, that.  The exposed cold of the mountain face… that was the issue.  Anyway:

“ _This ams total bullcraps, why ams them taking so long?_ ”  Right into his ear.  Across the circle, their faces lit by a dim lantern in the centre, the witch trilled her warcry unwitting.

“Messching with usch,” growled Murderface, and Skwisgaar only nodded, chipping into the chant at his prescribed time:

“Valfreya.”

And the bassist gave an annoyed sigh, scrutinising the woman amongst them with narrow, piggy eyes.  Sure, she was hot, in that MILF way.  But Murderface resented having blood put on him as much as the others, his leg hairs standing straight from his skin in the chill of the mountain wind.  Skwisgaar was right.  The whole thing was bullshit.

The witch glared right at him, noticing he’d dropped the chant, and put-upon he picked it up again, droning on with a throat full of saliva.  He’d just about tuned out to what he was saying, taking in the stark, black stone, the creaking structure of their stage; he thought he could hear a drone in the distance, like the mountain was speaking to them.  Very Dopesmoker.  Awesome.

He slowly became aware that the drone was chopping, growing louder, a smothering sound.  Like the overdriven rhythm guitar of their early days, pushing the amps to short circuit, slicing through the air.  Or kind of like, ah - well - a chopper?

Kind of like that chopper, rising over the mountain face like a black shadow, the empty thud of its blades as it cut through the fog so loud it drowned their chant, the witch getting to her feet, her hood and hair blown back by the Hatredcopter’s wake.  A blazing spotlight seared over their circle and Murderface thought he saw her mouth form ‘No’, lost beneath the thundering sound, but before she could scream to complain she was already crumpling, falling unconscious across the broad black stones, a dart lodged in the muscle of her neck.

The band looked up, bambi-eyed, to the open cockpit, a foot ladder descending, for the maternal and watchful face of their manager.  Sure enough, Offdensen was perched at the edge of his seat, ready to disembark, the marks scrubbed raw off of his face and an overcoat thrown over his shoulders and whipped by the chopper’s blades - and he’d brought the cavalry.  In seconds he was down the ladder, alighting and crossing the stone to them, flanked by elite Gears, though bizarrely - thought Murderface - female ones.  Kinda hot, the sense that a woman could pop your head between her thighs like a watermelon.  No wonder Charles kept them for special occasions.

The band rose to meet him, expecting some warm acknowledgement of how well they’d done, listening to the witch (left sprawled out cold on the stone at their feet) and doing what she said all this time, but all Offdensen said in greeting was, “Good,” and then, curtly, “Where are they?”

The smattering of blood speckled and drooled down his shirt should have tipped them off, but it had taken the brightest of them nearly a week to even recognise their colleague in a skirt and eyeshadow, let alone realise when the infallible Charles was in danger.  As Nathan mutely pointed to the cave mouth, they saw another light beyond the distant glimmer of the swung spotlight flare reflected in his glasses, and he immediately broke past them, pushing into a run with the Gears at his heels.  The light was coming from the cave, a brilliant beam shot up through a distant opening into the fog in a white, glistening column, the mouth behind them illuminated as if under stage lights.  They didn’t have to think - all three followed wordlessly at a belaboured jog.

They caught up to him at the gaping cave mouth, the manager yapping orders and “Go, go, go!” at the Gears as they descended into the cavity.  Murderface imagined him with a whistle, like a high school coach or - or the Principal repurposed for the sports carnival.  The manager’s fitness next to theirs was intimidating, enough that they didn’t notice the slight wobble to his movements, still fighting off the drugging.  When they drew up, huffing and bending over themselves, Offdensen just glared at them and started down the rock face himself, dropping the last few feet onto the black sand with impressive grace though he paused on his feet longer than he would have liked upon impact, his head swimming, aware of the band clambering down behind.  Stuck between them like this, between where Toki and Pickles were and the others, he could feel another sense run through him like stretched rubber.  The closer they were to one another, the more it relaxed back to a feeling of peace.  It had been like this since his resurrection.  Suffice to say their holidays were stressful times for Offdensen.

The cave dwarfed them, a circular lava tube, the floor black sand worn from the walls over many centuries.  In the bright light, beaming down the tunnel towards them, one could see that the walls were covered in ancient Norse carvings - animals, gods, runes, every inch chiselled and embellished.  The sand was undisturbed except by Pickles’ clumsy, dragged sneaker footsteps, and before them, the witch’s light leather shoes and the body she’d been pulling behind her.  As soon as Offdensen saw this, he was off again, gesturing the Gears to his side as he started towards the heart of the light, his hastened steps slow in the fine sand underfoot.

The band followed, similarly hindered.  The air felt thinner as they ran, boots skidding on the black sand, the empty, orb-like eyes of carved figures gazing down at them.  Skwisgaar in particular was troubled by these, distracted and stumbling amongst his fellows; sucked in by an anxious, high pitched, ethereal sound that was filling the cave, vibrating its walls, he did not like the way his dream was going.  Another sound like the air ripping around them tore through the tunnel and he tripped, caught by Nathan and dragged behind until he caught his footing again.

“I hates this!  We gotta go back!” he cried, but it fell on deaf ears.  Ahead, past the blinded silhouettes of Offdensen and the Gears, they could see a small hooded figure cut out from the light, poised to run, brandishing the staff at its origin – a massive, brilliant pillar of light, rippling with shreds of aurora which suggested a nude body in recline within the cave, breasts, flowing hair, leaning on her elbow, dwarfing the figure before it.

“Pickles!” yelled Offdensen, skidding to a halt on the sand and holding back the Gears with an outstretched hand.  The drummer looked up for a split second, mad horror in his wide eyes, and nothing could be heard but the howl of the breaking atmosphere. 

he band pulled to a stop behind their manager, gasping for breath or staring mutely at the figure that towered, blank eyed, over them.  Charles, their pillar, was calm even in the face of it, but wary, hanging back, scanning the carvings that lined the walls around them.  Big cats, blank eyed, and twisted female figures.  Wing-like shapes.  Lord, he should have known as soon as Toki blurted that ridiculous name at him.  It was a pity to incur the wrath of Freyja.  In a different, more noble time, they would have been at her mercy.

“Where’s Toki?” he yelled out, and Pickles just pointed at the being, his mouth hanging open in fear.  Offdensen saw, however, that this was not true.  He’d arrived too late.  This was the goddess and vengeance was upon them.  But he could see faintly, if he strained his eyes, a figure stretched on the cave floor at Pickles’ feet, washed out by the light; the possession had ceased, the goddess was out of him, and if they were lucky he’d still be alive.

With the obvious problem being, ah, the goddess.

There were things Offdensen knew, about Dethklok, prophecies, powers, that he didn’t like to dwell on; more than anything, that he didn’t like to rely on.  He was sure they’d be okay – one ancient, forgotten goddess was nothing compared to the combined faith that supported Dethklok – but he just... didn’t like to bargain on that alone, you know?

He meant... Toki was probably dying right now and they couldn’t even match him at a run.  You know?

The tunnel started to tremble, the tearing noise forming consonants, words, around them.  When Charles listened he could tell it was in a language he didn’t speak, some ancient Nordic tongue, but still he understood.  He threw a glance back at the band, collectively frozen in terror with Skwisgaar sweating pale and shaking where he stood, and realised they too heard and understood.

_Desecrating Army of the Western Lands, you dare to venture into Fólkvangr and call forth Freyja, Lady of the Slain, despite your sins against this land?_

There was vast, horrifying silence, and then Skwisgaar mumbled, “That ams some fuckings Amon Amarth bullshit, rights there.”

Charles glared back at him, then took a step forward from his bodyguards, turning his face up at the gigantic figure.  The chased light across her face indicated perhaps she was looking at him.  Good; so long as she was looking at him and the Gears, she wasn’t looking at the band.  A naiveté on his part.  Gods never truly looked away.

“Ma’am, ah.  This was a mistake.   We came to apologise,” he shouted up at her, and barely heard Nathan shout, “Wait, what?” over the thin, tearing atmosphere.

“We, ah, we meant no disrespect.  Ah, I mean, I, ah, sat through all of _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ in New York, um, I’m a big fan.  Ha ha,” Offdensen blundered on, unaware of shared concerned stares of the band and the Gears on either side of him, “Ah... please give back Toki.  You know yourself the importance of an, ah, a united house.”

His words fell flat in the silence that followed, a great, consuming space between them.  Slowly the light moved, swam through the air in licks and flares, as the goddess raised her hand idly before her, palm down.

_Mortal.  Do not speak to me._

The words reverberated through their bones, and Offdensen raised his hands to surrender too late.  No flash of light, no bolt of lightning – the manager was simply lifted off his feet by a pulse of force and thrown like a toy, almost comically flicked by the goddess, hitting the sand shoulder-first two dozen feet away and lying still, winded and prone.

“Charlie!” yelped Pickles, hugging the staff close to his body where he stood at the feet of the figure.  The Gears were immediately in action, rushing to Charles’ side to pull him to his feet, but the goddess had other ideas and pushed him down with an invisible force as he tried to rise.  Her voice cracked like thunder through the cave around them.

_I witness by your markings that you come not for repentance.  You appear before me seeking judgement, and that I will deliver unto your house._

“Oh, shit.”  Pickles backed towards his band, his eyes fixed on the goddess.  “Oh, _shit_.”  He remembered Charles’ words in the limo, hazy beside the cloud of his anger: a curse.  To teach a lesson.  A curse from Freyja, or – or whatever this was.  Really, the Norse gods weren’t _real_ gods, were they, not like God was a god.  More like trolls, more like dragons.  Right?  Please be right.  He didn’t need an existential crisis right now.

The goddess spoke again, splitting the air, and Pickles stumbled on the sand and fell sadly back onto his ass, staring up at her.  He felt Nathan come up behind him, looming over him like a lion over a kill, the rest of the band in his wake.

“We didn’t do shit.  Give him back,” snarled the frontman, his face twisted into a vicious sneer.  Scrambling to his feet, Pickles whinged in echo, his voice rippled by the twisting air: 

“ _Yee-ah!_   Give him back!  You bitch!”  He ditched the seiðr staff at her, but his throw was shit and it fell flat in the sand a mere two feet away.  The goddess completely ignored them.

_You performed the blood ritual.  You request judgement.  Wearing the body of your weaker kin, I have decided.  Step forward and receive._

The band exchanged glances, each waiting for one of the other to take the blame.  If they could all have taken a step back, they would have – and yet something was stirring.

Skwisgaar stepped forward, his hair like white gold in the blazing light.  If this was the manifestation of Freyja within his dream, it indicated something moving beyond him; he often thought and dreamed of the pagan gods, and often they had something to tell him.  Put it down to too much Bathory in his early life, but whatever.  Freyja certainly was something out of his dreams, a mother goddess, a war goddess, and his eyes had been keenly on the way the light traced out the globes of her hanging breasts, the lightning furred trail to her crotch deep down the cave, the round of her buttocks, the watching gaze of her lascivious cats from the walls.

“Ladys, Skwisgaar Skwigelf, _jag kommer att rida med dig!_ ” he called out, and the goddess regarded him.

 _You will ride with me?  You are but a bard and a coward,_ spoke the goddess, and the warrior confidence dropped out through the bottom of Skwisgaar’s heart.  _You punish and brutalise your kin barely disguised for the crime of his sex.  You acted not, never, in my defence, but manipulated and lied to me, moved only when your peers had moved and when you were forced to move.  Lazy, cowardly, woman-hating, beyond-saving.  If only I had taken you instead, perhaps you would have learned!_

Skwisgaar was speechless, gaping up at her.  How dare she tell such vicious lies in the presence of his band!  Trust Freyja, a bitch, to tear him down like this.

_For your crimes against myself and your sister, you will be punished._

The Swede felt a knot of anxiety tie within his gut.  “But I didn’tst do nothing!” he called out, and as the goddess turned her attention away from him, a vast pressure lifted from his body.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Murderface flinch and lock his knees, the weight shifting to his shoulders instead.

“Schit,” said Murderface, and bit his lip.

 _You - have been protective... generous and kind.  Your aid was necessary, but your fear of competition, your greedy motives... disappointing.  In finality, I decide that you will be punished,_ declared the goddess, and the bassist sunk to his knees as the pressure lifted from him again.  That $10 he’d spent on bath bombs, totally wasted.  He hadn’t even gotten laid.

“What happens if we fucked up?” growled Nathan, suddenly uncertain, feeling a gentle weight lay upon his shoulders like great wings.

 _You are punished,_ spoke Freyja, cracking the air around him.  Nathan just grunted, knowing he didn’t want to find out what that meant.  The goddess coolly regarded him, an electric presence raising the scarce hairs on his forearms, and then spoke again in judgement.

_Objectifying, crude and narrow sighted – your efforts at connecting with my avatar were heartening, despite necessitating a lie about my sexual availability.  Still, you blamed and attacked your sister, a victim, for something she could do nothing about.  For this, you will be punished._

“Fuck,” said Nathan, looking away, and the weight lifted from his shoulders.  Before him, Pickles staggered, dropping to his knees on the black sand.  The crushing pressure coming down over him was too much for his slight body, his eyes rolled up guiltily to the bizarre figure that pulsed around them.  This was not looking good for him, easily the most to blame in the entire situation.  Whatever punishment they received, his was bound to be graver.

Behind him, the goddess suitably distracted, Offdensen was rising to his elbows, shuddering under the force that pinned him to the black sand.

 _A man should not perform seiðr without the relevant teachings.  Even Odin knew it was a violation of the lore..._ Freyja lowered her hand, laying it flat before Pickles and compressing the sand before him in a massive handprint.  The drummer swallowed hard, and shuddered as she spoke again.  _You did it to save your sister... but your other motives have been more selfish.  You have been manipulative, intoxicated, misleading and secretive.  It is insulting to see the cowl of my sisters upon your weak shoulders.  The decree is for punishment._

Pickles gave a short snort through his nostrils as the weight lifted from his crumpled body.  Towering above him, the goddess raised her head sharply, the light catching her face as she moved it; at the other side of the tunnel, Offdensen had battled up from the sand, every muscle in his body screaming at him to lie back down.  He shuddered there, bracing himself and ready to rush her with the Gears, only to be plucked off his feet again as she looked up at him, dragged seemingly by his left leg across the sand to right before her.

 _And you, mortal,_ her voice tore and boomed, and Charles froze under her gaze and the collective stares of the band and their servants; was he to be judged?  For what?  This had nothing to do with him.  _Your patronising efforts at control, your lies, the way you cloud and mislead; you hold yourself above your masters when your weakness is just as profound, merely less honest.  You too shall be punished._

She dropped him, and Charles crawled to his elbows again, a deep and trench cold sense of failure wrapped around his heart.  He alone knew what had been promised as a punishment; the PR nightmare of trying to explain why all of Dethklok had changed sex thundered around his head louder and more horrifically than trying to navigate his own body morphed.  A future where he had to explain synchronised menstruation to five grown women raced through his head, froze him to the core.  The world was an evil, messed up place.

Finally the goddess turned her attention to the body that had been lying prone on the sand by her breasts, lifting Toki with an unseen force before her.  He hung there, suspended, the white smock blood stained and licked with the electromagnetism in the air around his legs, as she made her decision.

_Now you, my vessel, a container... I have seen the contents of your heart, and even with the gift of true empathy, you are unable to stretch yourself to your sisters – a seething, internalised hatred, exploitive, deceiving and confusing, preying on your brothers and sisters alike.  You have not earned this gift.  For you, too, only punishment is apt._

Around them, the light was growing brighter – every rune and carving illuminated, blazing and filling the cavern with a blinding whiteness.  The atmosphere became thick and still around them, the sound of thunder, the real tearing across them, deafening them to anything but the goddess’ words.

_And so it has been decided._

A seething crawled through each man’s body, a sickening sense of rearrangement, before the pressure lifted – the goddess’ voice echoing on the myriad walls of the cave as they dropped into darkness again, fading out:  _Do not disturb me further._

There was a breath before a flashlight shone through the dark, held in Offdensen’s palm as he got to his feet. The Gears soon had theirs as well, only the light from the moon above and through the hole in the cavern roof softening their harsh beams.

“Okay.  Everyone... everyone, ah, intact?” breathed Charles, and there was a collective crotch-groping amongst those present, although at least Charles attempted to make his awkward shift where he stood, trying to judge what filled out his slacks, a little more subtle than say, Nathan going full palm to junk to his right. 

There was a general consensus, yes, everyone was intact.  Weird.  The Gears turned their lights on Toki, struggling to his feet from where he’d been dropped with the aid of one of the hooded women, and from the shortness of his smock, it was apparent that he, too, was intact.  The lights quickly lifted as they shared a collective wince.

“Jeschusch, Toki, pull down your schirt!” snapped Murderface, already turning to lead off down the tunnel.  “Thank schit that’sch over.”

Reluctantly and still checking their bodies for inconsistencies, the others followed, dragging their heels in the thick sand.  Pickles pulled the staff along behind him, deeply disquieted.  “Didn’t she say we were gonna be punished?  Nothing happened...”

“Uh, I guess this is the punishment, Pickles,” came Charles’ patient voice through the dark, taking the lead with torchlight on his back as they reached the steep climb.  “I guess, to – to Freyja, having to remain male is more terrible than any alternative.”

They seemed to accept this, no one quite in the mood to discuss it further.  Charles alighted the climb easily; the Gears aided the other men, carrying Toki on their shoulders and hauling the others up the rocks to scrambling boots.  At the mouth of the cave waited the Hatredcopter, spilling a red light over the scaled rocks, more hoods helping them aboard to the comfort and warmth of promised status quo just on the horizon.

Finally in the light again and giving a long stretch to work out the day’s events, then rearranging himself contently, Nathan cast his eye over Charles as the man aided the Klokateers in pulling aboard his bandmates.  “I never wanna talk about this again, okay?” he growled, and the manager just nodded, seizing Pickles’ wrist as they dragged the drummer into the chopper.  Watching his old friend stagger on into the light, Nathan noticed something they’d missed in the cold dark and blazing light of the cave, his eyes bolting open in fear.

“Pickles!” he yelped, and the drummer looked up at him, fuzzy with ether and sex and fatigue.

“Huh?”

“Your face!”

As it was, of course, covered in blood.

 

**MORDHAUS**

* * *

 

 

Home again.  Toki was tucked in bed to rest, Offdensen seemingly having had a long and halting conversation with him in the privacy of his room once they’d returned.  Pickles had tried to listen in for about six seconds, but the awkwardness of what they spoke about and the fear of blood still stuck in his beard, even after having washed it off in the chopper, got to him enough to drive him to the shower.  And it felt so good to be clean and under warm water, to scald the ache out of his muscles and wash away the responsibility, the memory, of the last two weeks.  Tomorrow was a new day, and he owed no one an explanation.

Once he was done, shoulders steaming, he shuffled into his room.  It had been cleaned and made up in his absence, all trace of Toki and nude Nathan mags removed for him, the covers laundered, his clothes cleaned for him, and – he noted with a quirk of his head, curious – one of his pillows moved down on the mattress and graced by something, a gift, left there for him.  Approaching, it was a note in a familiar hand, definitely Offdensen’s.  _Thank you, Pickles. – Charles F. Offdensen._   Always with the classy signature. 

Pickles huffed and snatched the note up, crumpling it in his hand and dropping it on the floor.  It’d be cleaned up later anyway.  As he grabbed it, though, he uncovered something else, a second part of the gift – and picked it up, sitting on the side of the bed in his towel as he cradled it in his palm.  A pack of TicTacs.  He did feel laughed at, but opened it all the same and bolted back a handful of the tiny sweets, crushing them between his teeth in minty shame.

Fuck all of this, seriously.

 

. . . . .

**Frigg spake:**

25\. "Of the deeds ye two | of old have done

Ye should make no speech among men;

Whate'er ye have done | in days gone by,

Old tales should ne'er be told."

\- _Lokasenna, 13th Century_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your warm welcome, it's over! jump up to ars moriendi for the next long fic I've been working on, should be right in the tag if you want!

**Author's Note:**

> Set just before season 4, probably.
> 
> Much thanks for all the lovely feedback so far.


End file.
